Sony discussing MP3, CD playback in PS4 after surprising fan feedback
When Sony outlined the PS4's hardware features in October, some potential customers were so shocked that the console wouldn't support MP3 files or CDs that they vowed to cancel their pre-orders. President of Sony Worldwide Studios Shuhei Yoshida was surprised by such a heated response.
"The biggest surprise for us all internally at Sony was there are so many people who passionately reacted to our announcement that there's no MP3 support or CD support on day one," Yoshida said on Giant Bomb's Interview Dumptruck, caught by Eurogamer. "It's not like we actively decided, 'Let's not do this feature so people will have to subscribe to Music Unlimited. The focus has been more on the game features. Some of the features we wanted but we couldn't get in on day one."
The PS4 team in Japan is figuring out the best way to implement the missing media features, Yoshida said: "We didn't really think about MP3 or CD. We thought, 'We're going to do that eventually ....' It caught us off-guard. People don't really talk about these features, right? Some people get really mad and [say,] 'I'll cancel my pre-order!' So as we speak, people in Japan – the system guys – are discussing when we can put these features in."
People certainly started talking about media features after Sony's announcement – we asked you (yes, you!) if musical freedom was important in a console, with poll results and your comments compiled here.
