No internet required?

Unless of course you intend to use your PS4 to watch your Blu Ray and DVD movies.

This news comes from the announcement of a day-one patch for the PlayStation 4, though it is unclear whether the patch is explicitly required to enable the features listed below. We do know, however, that "at first time use, users must connect to the internet" before Blu-ray and DVD playback will function, according to the press release.

Regardless, a launch-day PS4 will be capable of Remote Play through the PlayStation Vita, second screen experiences through PS Link and the PlayStation App on mobile, Twitch/Ustream streaming functionality and game DVR capabilities will all be available day-one. Users will also start out with the ability to play games as they download, use party chat, log-in using facial recognition via PlayStation Camera, navigate the home screen with voice commands, play games online and watch Blu-ray/DVD discs.

No big deal in and of itself, it's just funny that after they made themselves heroes to people with no internet/horrible internet at home, (yes they do exist, some people are in remote enough areas to still have dial up!) by not requiring internet, they've made a feature that same set of people are very likely to make use of, the DVD and Blu Ray playback, in-acessible without an update, and honestly, I cannot fathom a single good reason why that feature would simply not function at all without an update.

Maybe one of the launch day games like Killzone or Knack has the update on the disc for those folks.

News like this makes you wonder how ready MS and Sony are with regards to their systems. Its like it was an after thought. I anticipate that more problems would surface when they final hit the market.

Discs will have the update required. No internet needed.

Well that's good. Still, how in the world is such a basic function not ready to go out of the box? Did they rush it so fast to market that some moron forgot to make sure the movie playback works? -_-

Well Blu Ray players have always needed their AACS decryption keys kept up to date through updates. That would would be the most obvious reason why that doesn't work out of the box.

it's not a big deal. Jeez, Wii U and X1 are doing the same, i don't see anyone tearing them a new hole

Actually, they've both been torn a new one in pretty much every comment section thread I've seen. I'm not saying it's right to do so, but it certainly happened.

I don't see anyone tearing Sony a new hole either. O_o

Re-read the very opening portion of the post. It's more of a funny absurdity to me than a big horrible thing, and I made that pretty clear.

Really? i must have missed that

Do you mean the only method to unlock Blu-ray and DVD playback on PlayStation 4s besides downloading the update from the internet is to buy a game?

Well I doubt anyone bought it just to have a movie player. ;)

Yeah, "comment section" banter is rarely worth spending too much time on. You're better off having missed it. lol

As a policy I pretend the comments section on any articles anywhere on the internet, but especially on sites like this, do not exist. It's simply better that way. Those comments sections are worse than System Wars circa 2001 when it had no mods willing to patrol it and half the front page was porn.

Agree, i dont see anything problematic here.

The update/activation of the bluray/dvd "player" is nothing that will break the box

Also the problem with MS wasn´t that it required a internet conn to update on release day, the problem was the always on or it would brick.

If this were released to the press a few months ago, the momentum of the PS4 might be different. Was Sony's plan for the PS4 Blu-ray and DVD playback to be online-only similar to how Microsoft planned for the Xbox One to have online checks for any gaming?

If you're buying a PS4 just to watch Blu Ray or DVD movies, you're doing it very, very wrong.

No, all you need to do is go online once to activate/update the player and you can use it all you want offline.

Heh. Well said.

Remember when the OG Xbox needed that stupid little sold separately add on to play DVD movies? Now that was stupid as hell. (so of course I bought one, plugged it in, and continued to watch movies on my PS2 anyway ;P )

I have wonder why this has suddenly become the standard. First it was the Wii U, then the Xbox One (which is understandable given the circumstances), and now the PlayStation 4. Can't most of these features be worked into the console OS by the default? And more importantly, will they be down the road? I'd sure hope so, because it'd be ridiculous to have to keep downloading that same patch should you, say, have to replace your console or something.

It's nice to see they'll be distributing it via disc as well (Nintendo did the same with the Wii, as I recall), but it's still weird that they even need to do this. Makes me wonder how long ago they locked down the version of the OS they're shipping with.

You totally missed my point.

Maybe you quoted the wrong person because your response is not appropriate for my question.

Then i must have misunderstood your question, but didn't you ask if Sony´s plan was to do an "always online" like MS planned at first? because the answer to that will still be a no.

Also why would the momentum for sony have been different if this press release were out a few months ago, all it says is that almost all features in ps4 will be ready at launch for North America, the others will be implemented at a later day.

Your response like other posts in this thread seemed to be trivializing this when not too long ago people were not lenient with Microsoft after that company told the public about the day one patch for the Xbox One addressing something similar. The hype for the PlayStation 4 would be different because Sony made a well-received public announcement at E3 this year regarding Microsoft. If Sony had planned to isolate any of the PS4's features as online-only like MS, it would be a hypocritical company.

Sony at E3:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ht-0Hne4EU

If that is not what you mean, I apologize for the misunderstanding.

Do you have any proof of that not being Sony's plan?

You can update firmware via USB drive too. People without internet could always ask a friend to download the update data for them.

Lol, just like that, thread backfire. I wonder if the three musketeers PM each other about news and rumours to try and claim some sort of "ownage".

?????

I have yet to see Sony clarify whether or not system updates would be on disc or not. I know that is the case with PS3 though. Anyone able to provide a link?