I share, you share, we all share video game video -- or, at least, thats the promise of the rapidly encroaching next generation of consoles. With Twitch now officially joiningSonys PS4 as an additional livestreaming partner, gamers will have one more option (the other being Ustream) to broadcast gameplay when they press that Share button. The announcement, made at this years Gamescom in Cologne, Germany, positions Twitch advantageously on both Sony and Microsofts warring black boxes as an inbuilt app, although the similarities may end there.
As Matthew DiPietro, Twitchs VP of Marketing, explained to us, "The product itself and the feature set that will actually be available on both of the consoles is still a little bit up in the air because theyre actively being produced right now... but the key sort of feature set is clear." So crucial elements like video broadcast and viewing, picture-in-picture and audio capture -- all basic functions currently enjoyed by the services 600,000-strong user base -- will be de facto at launch.
But does that mean Day One or when the app launches? "Most likely for PS4 thats Day One and were working on that for Xbox One," DiPietro said, so theres no guarantee. But he was able to elaborate a little more on how search will work when the service goes live, adding that "[Discovery] will be a very similar experience to the Twitch website and Twitch mobile applications.
You can browse by game, by channel [and] were exploring ways to explore by genre." Youd think, then, that the ability to filter video via your friends list would also make the cut, but that sorting features not something users can expect initially. Rather, its something DiPietro said could come at a later date.
