PS4 Firmware Update 2.50 (Plus 3.50 Vita Discussion)

Suspend and resume, were features promised before the PS4 launched. The ability to pause a game at any time (like on modern handhelds) is a feature for a time many thought would never come. Well it's here, and you know what; it's impressive, someone is calling you and you have to pause your game for a while? Time for work and no save point in sight? Yeah 2.50 known as "Yukimura" is like the bees knees for you. But there's way more to 2.50 than meets the headline.

While everyone is out there freaking out about being able to make a sandwich while your game is taking a power nap; what else changed in the update? Well, here's one, they're finally pushing the share play/remote play feature to where it should be (in my opinion at least). With 60 FPS video streaming (again, please don't be a bonehead and have your system connected to the internet and then connect your Vita of PS TV and cry about lag). It's been confirmed, to play just fine and looks actually really good. Yukimura has been the biggest stealth buff for the Vita in my opinion. Now you can finally start a level at home and finish it during your lunch break reasonably. No more forcing yourself to leave your console in rest mode, you finally have a really good reason to finally do it. That and it can be a way to avoid some of the growing load times on boot for some of these newer games.

But, some of the other changes have gone under reported in my opinion, Maps is dead on the Vita, personally I don't care (it was a clunky interface that once they dropped the 3g reciever it's kind of pointless). Youtube is also dead on the Vita (again was kind of just there and rarely used on my unit at least). But the PS4 had some rather interesting features added. First being a number of new shadow backed font options (and a few tweaks in general to the color scheme of the dashboard) which in my opinion are finally starting to shape to personality of the PS4. For too long, it felt like the dashboard was a placeholder and they were waiting to stabilize everything else before they made the dashboard enjoyable to use. They're finally getting to that point it seems.

Yukimura also added a host of global controller remapping options under a newly created "Accessibility" section; this section is aimed at expanding access to gamers who might have limited motor function. This is a great idea and is the first time (I at least have seen) a major console producer allow for remapping of this magnitude from the dashboard. This has some interesting implications though. Competitive gamers may be able to take advantage of Sony's well meaning feature though.

I could see some pad warriors remapping L3 as an alternate jab in the upcoming PS4 port of Street Fighter 4. It could be quite interesting and could lead to some genuinely interesting controller layouts. Overall Yukimura is seemingly stable, and most appreciated update that delivered much of what was promised. Now where's that blasted Spotify?