The Playstation 3 comes packed with a large amount of features, yet many of the major ones are barely supported. The PS4 needs to fix that.
(know that the above image is only fan-made)
Better Video/Music Codec Support.
If there’s one thing that Playstation fans have yearned for since the launch of the PS3, it’s support for more Video/Music Codec. MKV is among those much requested and it’s definitely something that Sony should support with the PS4. Though there are reasons why the MKV Codec specifically isn’t supported, most of which have to due with its common use in piracy.
Universal In-game Music, Screen Grab, and Chat.
As of now the Playstation 3 supports the ability to do all these things (except chat), but Sony has left it as a choice for developers to include it themselves. This led to a lack of support for these features, which is seriously troubling considering how long we have lusted for in-game music to be added. Leaving this option entirely up to developers has made it nearly nonexistent. I can understand this though and, like all these features, it all has to do with inherent memory restrictions of the console. This means that whatever ancillary features a developer does decide to add tend to limit a game’s system performance. Hopefully this is fixed with the next console.
A smooth and clean in-game interface.
The one thing that everyone can agree on with the Playstation 3 is the in-game XMB. For the most part it’s slow. I don’t have an issue with the interface at all as I find it perfect and would love to see it in the next console. My only issue is that it’s slow and crammed with useless options. The in-game XMB should be running smoothly in-game, not taking time to load something up that shouldn’t be that hard to do. The only options available to players while in-game are the only ones that should appear. I don’t need the option to format my console and a bunch of other “unavailable unless you quit” options either.
The return of video recorder, with 720P support.
If there’s one thing I love most about the Playstation 3 is that it supports in-game recording for certain titles. I was impressed with what it had to offer, especially since i could record my gameplay in Uncharted 3. However, upon retrieving the video from my console I realized that the resolution is only 420P. Not exactly the kind of HD people want to view nowadays, but hey Sony is getting there. I am a bit surprise to see that this isn’t a part of the PS Vita and hopefully some sort of application later on will support it.
Anyway, I feel that this is a must have feature for any gamer/film maker out there. If Sony can get the next Playstation console running with 720P recording (Minimum) then they will make plenty happy. This would remove a great amount of stress off getting HD Record/PVR that requires certain specification.
Backwards Compatibility For PS3 Games
This is a no brainer, however I’m not relating this to PS1/PS2 titles but to PS3. Lets take a look at the PS3, it dropped support for the PS2 after a year and opted for digital re-releases and HD collections. Though I enjoy them and spent plenty of time on the God of War and Jak HD collections I can’t help but fear that this is a indication of where things are heading. Taking a look at the PS Vita you’ll see that Sony did the same strategy. They dropped support for PSP titles and opted for digital release only. Perhaps this was a move to protect their console from hacks, we’ll never know for sure. Either way, to me this is a sign that the PS4 may very well drop PS3 disc support and go for digital.
Background Games, Patch Downloading Option with Background Install.
There’s one feature that many Playstation 3 owners have, but actually don’t know it’s there. We know that you can download games in the background by selecting that option when prompted, but did you know you can do the same for patches? Well…kind of, but it requires PS+. Many of you who have PS+ have the auto download option activated, but did you know that when the system is running that your able to interrupt it? Yes just go on the PS3 when it does it’s auto download thing and you’ll be able to move around the XMB, play games, ect. If your console was downloading a patch it will continue to do so in the background, so no more waiting for 2GB patches and such. Sadly there is no actual option to do this yet, though we expect there to be one in the PS4 with the addition of background installation. This would save plenty of time and make it less of a hassle than before.
As far as I know the reason there is no In-Game Music player is because Microsoft own the patent for it.