I think Kotaku said it best with ‘why we can’t have nice things’ when talking about The PlayRoom, an augmented reality game designed to show off the capabilities of the PlayStation 4 and its new Eye camera. As with any new technology the intention to allow fun and creativity is taken too far by a minority – have they ruined the fun for everyone else?
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The PlayRoom comes pre-installed on the PS4 and uses the PlayStation Eye camera to allow players to interact with a robot that flies around the room on screen, interacting using facial recognition and by tracking motion. the first thing people usually do is punch it, which only leads to angering the poor little guy; he’ll then turn and retaliate at the player who hit him with electrocution and even a fireball. Using the touch-pad of the new DualShock 4 controller, you can launch a screen full of baby robots into your living room to play with, or even turn the inside of the controller into a dance floor (see the video below at 1:20).
Unfortunately the innocent fun ceased when one couple realised they could use the PS4 sharing feature to broadcast their own special strip show via Twitch.tv, which is possible in any video game running on the console. At first they were just drinking themselves silly on air until the guy decided to lift his passed-out-partner’s top, exposing her chest for the world to see for quite some time until the stream went offline. It shortly came back but this time she was completely naked and was most likely unconscious with no knowledge of it happening.
The Twitch.tv account of this couple was quickly banned by the steaming service; however, the real problem is that these streams will be easily accessible by any children using an PS4 connected to the Internet. It’s very likely that this particular game will end up blocked from being able to stream video or will at least have some kind of parental controls added; unfortunately such measures go unused by most parents, something that Apple has learnt a lot about recently.
For Sony there is a great risk that something much worse could happen using this game and the streaming service, that gets caught by the mainstream news and creates a lot of bad press for a console that is marketed at families as much as it is for hardcore gamers. Any child that realises they can watch other people playing The PlayRoom online will no doubt spend a lot of time doing so which increases the risk of them seeing something that could disturb them and outrage parents. This will most likely be resolved quite soon considering the spotlight is still on the next generation consoles, but it does make you wonder what will the next big piece of negative press will be aside from the current hardware failures.
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Finally, we found a couple actually playing the game as intended.
The story of this couple is not the only reported abuse of using The PlayRoom as a broadcasting studio, as another pair decided to host a talk show asking watchers to call in. While this is entirely possible with just a standard PC and a webcam, the fact that it’s built into the PS4 is the main concern here due to its accessibility to minors. We are still only a few weeks into the next generation with just the early adopters buying themselves a new console, but when the masses decide to jump in next year we may be seeing a lot more incidents like this until something is changed.
Let us know in the comments section below about what you make of this or if you already own a PS4 and have seen anything dodgy on The PlayRoom streams.
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