PS4's Upcoming Game Sharing Feature Limits You to 60 Minutes Per Session

The new Share Play feature in the PlayStation 4's forthcoming 2.0 system update sounded extremely exciting when it first announced earlier this week. However, there is a major restriction on how Share Play can be used: a 60-minute time limit.

Following a report by French site Gameblog (via Attack of the Fanboy), Sony has confirmed with GameSpot that Share Play users will be limited to 60 minutes per session. There's no limit on the number of times you can use Share Play, meaning you can conceivably start Share Play up again and continue playing. Of course, this is hardly ideal, and likely not what people envisioned when Share Play was revealed during Sony's Gamescom press conference.

Share Play was pitched by Sony as a "virtual couch" that allowed for "an online local co-op experience." A PlayStation Plus member can share a game over the Internet with a friend, who can take control to either play alone or to play local multiplayer as if he or she were in the same room.

SCE Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida offered up some additional details on how Share Play will work in an interview with Famitsu (as translated by Kotaku). Comparing it to Sony's new PlayStation Now streaming service, he said, "How it works is, for example, say, a friend has a game that I don't. I ask them to let me play it, and if they send me an invitation, I can access their PS4 and play while watching the video that is streamed."

He didn't specify how much time could pass between these steps; it's possible the owner will need to be at his or her console to grant access at the same time as when someone wants to play a game. What it means for sure is that the person doing the sharing will be unable to use their system while someone else is remotely playing a game on it.

Some of this certainly dampens the enthusiasm I had for Share Play, but it's not all bad news. Yoshida said the feature works with all PS4 games without any effort on the part of developers. Additionally, save games are tied to the player's account, allowing you to try a friend's game, buy it, and then pick up from where you left off.

The 2.0 update that introduces Share Play--along with the ability to upload saved videos to YouTube and search for PSN users by their real name, among other things--is coming sometime this fall.