As usual, the internet became rife with speculation regarding Sony’s possible motives for dropping such easily implemented support for the most popular physical and digital music formats on the planet - with many giving the evil eye to Sony’s Music Unlimited subscription service.
But in a move that will surely become a trend in the next-generation of games consoles, Sony will add MP3 and CD playback, along with DLNA (Sony’s chosen media network standard) to the PlayStation 4’s firmware… eventually.
Like we have been saying, the focus has been always on the game features. And some of the features we wanted but we couldn’t get in on day one we are very disappointed and worried about not having on day one, and that have been the higher priorities.
We didn’t really think about MP3 or DLNA," he adds. “We always thought we’re going to do that eventually. We’ve been doing it with all the products. So it caught us off guard.”
While it’s good to know that Sony is actively listening to the feedback of soon-to-be PlayStation 4 owners, and that they’re willing to add MP3 and CD playback support via what is assumed to be a future firmware update, one can’t help but wonder why such support isn’t available from day one.
Admittedly, the global sales figures of albums and singles in physical CD form has waned over recent years, but CDs are still sold at a scale that warrants attention from console manufacturers. Furthermore, the almost unanimously agreed to reason for declining CD sales is the increased popularity of digital music vendors - many of which provide music in the MP3 format.
There’s also no technological limitation behind the absences of CD support in the PlayStation 4 as Shuhei Yoshida himself has stated that they’re looking to add the functionality post launch - and Sony certainly won’t be offering free DIY optical drive replacement kits any time soon. Microsoft’s Xbox One supports CD and MP3 playback out of the box, so why not the PlayStation 4 which otherwise boasts a similar feature set?
Can it really be believed that the guys and gals at Sony simply overlooked the support of such ubiquitous audio formats in favour of video game-related features - such as the PlayStation 4 Eye camera peripheral? Is the lack of CD and MP3 playback just one more indication that the PlayStation 4 launch may be rushed? Are both systems coming out a little too soon for that holiday sales money? Drop us a comment below and let us know your thoughts!
Sony’s PlayStation 4 releases November 15, 2013 in North America and November 29, 2013 in Europe and Australia.
Sources: Giant Bomb, Polygon, Sony
