PS4 video reveals UI for sharing gameplay videos, multitasking, making friends

By now, most people ought to have dismissed the old stereotype that the male is the calm, rational opposite of the hysterical female. If anything, it's the other way round, which is why the short promo video shown right at the end of Sony's E3 press conference was kind of refreshing. It was also pretty useful, because even if the software it shows isn't final, it reveals how the PS4 user interface is likely to handle things like chat, gameplay video sharing and multitasking. Read on for a cut-down version of the fast-paced clip and our probing evaluation of what it says about PS4 gaming and human behavior.

So, from what we can tell, the clip shows an emotional guy, Will Walker, repeatedly failing at the Knack monster masher on PS4, to the point where he's about to give up and condemn himself as a worthless good-for-nothing who should have never been born in the first place. Until, to his immense relief, he spots that his PSN buddy Sarah Greene has uploaded a gameplay video showing how she mashes up the monster (using height rather than just a plain frontal attack, duh).

Will Walker double-taps his PS button to instantly return to the game, where he replicates Sarah's goblin-murderin' moves to great success. He immediately regains his confidence, mood-swinging back to the primeval belief that he do anything and beat anyone -- even the Killzone: Shadow Fall baddies who happen to be waging war on his old pal Brian Ramos at that very moment.

Brian calls for help over the bundled single ear mono headset, and Will starts a download of the game's multi-player mode before double-tapping to return to Knack. When he gets a system notification that the download is done, Will joins Killzone with Brian, but quickly gets stuck because, once again, he's a nobody, a complete nothingness, and life always gets in his way. Until Brian solves it by using the Share button on his controller to show Will how to make proper use of his rifle's telescopic sight.

That's gaming; that's sharing; that's humanity -- and you know what makes it hyper, hyper real? The bits in the video where the guys message Sarah (e.g., to encourage her to buy Killzone via her Xperia smartphone), and they use their D-pads (or motion control?) to enter text, letter... by... letter... And then word prediction kicks in to magically complete entire sentences. That's some authentic footage, right there.