Sony vows to improve the PlayStation Network on PS4

Many of the features of the PlayStation 4 are directly tied to how well the PlayStation Network functions.  One of the major complaints that PlayStation owners have had over the years is Sony’s online infrastructure, a facet of the PlayStation Ecosystem that many feel was inferior to Microsoft’s Xbox Live service.

Sony has been rolling out next-gen features on the PlayStation 3.  Recently, Sony allowed Grand Theft Auto V purchasers the ability to play as you download, with the intention of shortening the time would-be players would have to wait from point of purchase to actually playing the game.  If you participated in this, you probably had some issues — and it might have soured you a bit on the possibility of this working well on the PlayStation 4.  With only a little over a month to launch, Sony will really need to improve upon this functionality if they want happy customers come Christmas.

PSN will perform better on multiple levels due to investment from Sony

Speaking with Eurogamer, PlayStation UK boss Fergal Gara explained how Sony is looking to make this a hassle free experience with improvements to the PSN.

“The Play as you Download functionality, for example, means you don’t need the whole file before you go. This is a little bit counterbalanced by the fact the files themselves are getting bloody big. Killzone: Shadow Fall is an uber file – I think it’s cracking on for 50GB. It looks it, too, when you see it…Downloading games] is still a relatively tedious process. We’ve done a lot of work on pre-delivering files. It’s not perfect. It’s not seamless.”

Apparently Sony is investing heavily on making the PlayStation Network better all around, but Gara also believes that newer machines will help remedy some of the issues.

“Some of the problems occurred on older machines, which of course when you go into the next generation you at least get to reset and start again and everything’s the same age and new.  That helps.  But it’s a major area of focus.  It’s a major area of investment.  The network will perform better on multiple levels, because it becomes not just a sales or gaming deliver but, increasingly, a social network.”

And Sony will have the funding to improve the PSN this time around.  The company will begin charging PlayStation Network users for online access to multiplayer games through an extension of the PlayStation Plus.  Will they make good on these promises in November?  We’ll find out soon enough, but they’ll be coming under.