At the 2014 Game Developers Conference, Sony announced that the next update for the PlayStation would contain some impressive features, including more robust tools for sharing game footage. The announcement was met with excitement, causing rampant speculation among the gaming community. Now that they’ve come forward with the exact details, the speculation is over. SHAREfactory is the new word on everybody’s lips, and it’s expected to be a big deal once it’s released.
SHAREfactory is the name of PlayStation’s new video editing software for the PS4. Although it’s only part of the 1.70 roll out, it’s the most significant part, at least in terms of what the public is talking about. Gaming videos are incredibly popular, with everything from walkthroughs to tutorials to Let’s Play series popping up regularly on sites like YouTube, Vimeo and Twitch.
PlayStation has decided to facilitate that gamer desire by making it easy to create, edit and share video made with PlayStation games. The software captures footage from the game, or it can capture picture in picture video with the PS4 Eye Camera. Once footage is captured, the editing tools make it easy to stitch clips together, add audio commentary to the video, or even create a soundtrack. There will be a variety of filters that can be added to the clips and a slew of different transitions and dissolves, so the end result should look somewhat professional even if it was made by a complete amateur.
The software will also have the capability to add text to videos so you can create title screens or subtitles, and stickers – similar to television network logo “bugs” on TV – can be designed and added in post-production to gussy it up. There will be a number of music choices available from PlayStation themselves, or users can load their own music onto the hard drive and use that.
Once the video is complete, SHAREfactory has the ability to automatically post it to Facebook, or it can save the video to an external USB device. Once saved, the video can be transferred to a computer and uploaded to YouTube or any other site that accepts videos. Additionally, the videos can be longer than previously possible, thanks to the ability of users to turn of HDCP during recording, a feature players have been clamoring for.
SHAREfactory is the biggest news in 1.70, but it isn’t the only new feature PlayStation is trying to get fans excited about. Also scheduled to roll out with the update is the new ability to play a game the second that game is released. Developed because of the positive response to PlayStation’s “play as you download” feature, they’re introducing a way for people to play the games they pre-order even faster.
If the PlayStation’s auto-download capability is turned on, once 1.70 is release, the console will automatically download games before they’re actually available. The games will be locked, so gamers won’t be able to get to the good stuff early, but they’ll unlock as soon as the game is officially released. This means they’ll be immediately ready to play, and excited gamers won’t have to wait while the game downloads and installs.
There isn’t a set release date for 1.70, beyond the enticing “coming soon,” but it shouldn’t be too long considering the amount of hype they’re building around it. Now, let’s keep our collective fingers crossed that it lives up to said hype!
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