PlayStation 4 Update 7.00 To Make Gaming More Social, More Mobile

There exists a stereotype that gamers are loners that lock themselves up in the darkness of their rooms, their faces glued to their screens and hands twitching rapidly on keyboards and mice or controllers. That couldn't be farther from the truth, considering how gamers love both competitive and cooperative play with their peers. The Internet has made that even more accessible, reaching to gamers from other parts of the world. With the latest update coming to the console, PS4 owners can enjoy an expanded social circle, even when they play away from their PlayStations.

The expanded Party feature has been teased in previous previews but now Sony is laying it all out for PS4 gamers to get excited over. Now they have eve more friends to play with, up to 16 if they have that many at one time. Sony also promises improvements in network and audio quality to make it even more fun to play with friends.

The Party mobile app also has one new interesting feature. Both as an accessibility feature and for convenience, the app will feature Chat Transcription, converting voice chat to text, as well as text to speech that will read out loud what you send to other party members. The feature will only be available in the US on the Second Screen mobile app.

Sony may have not fully jumped into the game streaming trend but it does have its own flavor of Remote Play, which is now available for Sony Xperia phones, those running version 5.0 or higher, and iPhones and iPads. For those running the latest versions (Android 10 and iOS/iPadOS 13, they can connect a DualShock 4 controller on Remote Play via Bluetooth.

The PlayStation 4 firmware version 7.00 update will be going out to owners starting this week, so PS4 owners might have something to look forward to in their next gaming weekend with friends. That said, regional availability still affects some features and, for the Remote Play, a wired LAN connection is advised.