Before the PS4 was officially unveiled by Sony, one of the more popular points of conversation was whether or not it would be always online. As we know now, the PS4 doesn’t require it, with Shuhei Yoshida, President of Sony Worldwide Studios, speaking to Game Informer in the magazine’s latest issue (via NeoGaf), revealing that it wasn’t even a thought:
Did we consider [always-online]? No, we didn’t consider it. The main reason being that many countries don’t have robust internet connections. It makes sense for people to have internet connections to play online games, but for offline games there are many countries that we saw do not really have robust internet… We didn’t even consider that.
Shuhei’s reasoning for not including always online mirror the most rational responses to the infamous ‘Deal With It‘ tweeting saga, yet we still don’t have 100% confirmation (just a possible internal memo) that the Next Xbox is going to allow offline play.
What do you think are some other reasons why always online is a bad idea? Voice your opinion in the comments below.
