Am I stupid or does PS4's couch co op suck?

I have never done couch co op on a Sony console until PS4, I have always used my 360, which was easy - Just create a profile (no email/password necessary) for my brother or friend and then when they wanted to join all they had to do was just turn on a controller and selected their profile. All of his save data is auto saved to the system storage.

Now maybe I am doing this wrong but so far this is what I have had to do -
- Create a profile for each person - which means entering in an email and password (basically making non PS+ account). This is annoying because I either have multiple people using the same profile/saves or I have a bunch of PS passwords and emails to remember (these people don't have consoles).

- Then every time they want to play they have to sign in with email/password.

- After we are done playing I have to save his game saves to a USB because it wont let me save it locally (it gives me a warning when turning off the console that the guests save data will be deleted).. I don't get that.

- So then the next time we want to play they have to sign in and load the USB save data to the system.

It only takes a few minutes each time but it's really getting annoying. I am aware that I can just add them as a guest without signing in but then it does not save their game saves/progress. Is there really not a way to just create a named guest account that doesn't require a sign in that can also save locally? This is ridiculous if that is the case. I am glad I got a PS4 over an X1 but this could possibly convince me to switch sides after my PS+ is up (and I'm finished with Bloodborne)...

Thanks for the help, hopefully I am just doing something stupid.

@dcno07:

I think your just stupid, you asked for it.

Your playing co-op, why do you need to save the other person's progress?

Yeah, if saving their progress is important to them, why don't they just create their own PSN accounts?

I get what you're saying, OP. The account management for Sony's ecosystem is stupid to say the least. I wanted to create a childed PSN account for my girlfriend so we can play locally and she can also play the games I purchased on my account using hers. It was a pain in the ass and I don't even remember how I did it.

haha thanks. The reason I want it to save is we play a lot of Helldivers and I just got Diablo 3 so it helps both of us if we can save his progress - especially in Helldivers.

I think that's basically what I had to do. I signed them up with an email and PW.. If that's all there was to it I wouldn't complain. However, they have to sign in every time they want to play, with full email and PW, then load their saves off the USB and then when we are done they have to save their game progress to the USB.. It doesn't take that long but it's annoying having to make sure my USB is always plugged in and not to mention I have seen the alternative on x360 - just create a sub profile with just a name and it saves automatically to the system and they never need a PW or email. I think this process is ridiculous if you compare it to the 360, a last gen console (I have no clue how X1 handles guests).

I don't get why PS4 doesn't allow a guest to save their game to the HDD...

i just made a guest profile, what's the big deal?

@dcno07: Not really sure why you need a usb to save their stuff? I have friends come over and play Diablo with me and their characters and progress are stored on my PS4. They just log in with their PSN account, play, upload their trophies, log out. Rinse, repeat.

PS4's couch coop is weird. I had to make an extra account for my daughter and it seemed like there were far too many steps.

@Bigboi500: I could be wrong but i think the only way to upload saves is if they are ps+ members.. When I turn off my PS4 after we r done playing it gives me a warning that their saves will b lost unless I save them. The only options are uploading them, which then says they have to be a ps+ member or option 2 which is saving to a USB.. Maybe I set their account up wrong. If I did could someone tell me how to set them up with basically a free guest account that can save onto my PS4? Thanks

Yeah some of the stuff is sort of stupid.

I know when my daughter and I play Minecraft on the PS4, whoever is not the main person signed into the PS4 has to click through all of the tutorial crap each and every time. Even when you are playing in a previously saved seed. It's like, yeah I know you have a ton of cobblestone in your inventory, and you started inside of a cobblestone building but would you mind if I told you about cobblestone? The PS4 is sort of like the Mormons of the video game console world.

Although at least now if there is more than one person signed into the console, both people can earn trophies in a game. A big step forward from the PS3

I can't really say because I've played co-op but not games where it's necessary for the other players to save progress.

Can't you just set their PSN accounts to automatically sign in when they log onto their profiles?

Hmm... my friends don't have PS+ or PS4s. But then again we haven't tried to play online yet, just local co-op in Diablo 3.

Never had a problem with local coop...

I figured out what I was doing wrong. PS4 can handle guests the same way x360 did. If u create a user from the settings menu and then select skip or decline (not sure which one is was) it will make a user named user1 which u can change the name later. What I was originally doing wrong was turning on the second controller and basically trying to sign in a psn member.. Which I had to create... The only thing I noticed is I couldn't bring the guest with me online. Hope this helps someone.

Its a sad day for Local Co-Op :(

Same. Very much let down in Sony when I was trying to set up local co-op for my kids. Why is that the PS3 is simpler and better at this than the PS4? Very poor and frustrating implementation.

don't bump old threads