Includes changes to Party and Messages features, new avatars, updated parental controls and more.
UPDATE: Following this update, users are seeing a notification about Party Safety and that voice chats in parties may be recorded. Voice chat recording for moderation is a feature that will be available on PS5 when it launches, and will enable users to record their voice chats on PS5 and submit them for moderation review. The pop up you’re seeing on PS4 right now is to let you know that when you participate in a chat with a PS5 user (post-launch), they may submit those recordings from their PS5 console to SIE.
Our latest system software update for PlayStation 4, version 8.00, is launching today globally. This update includes changes to the existing Party and Messages features, new avatars, updated parental controls and more.
Here are some of the key features in this update:
Updates to Party and Messages
Following this update, Party and Messages will be more tightly linked together and you will see changes to the UI. Both apps will now use the same ‘Groups’ of players for Party voice chats and message exchanges, instead of having different groups setup across the two apps. So now you can start a Party chat or send a message to the group you’ve previously chatted with across PS4, as well as PS5 when it launches.
New Avatars
We’re expanding the collection of pre-set avatars for players to showcase on their Profile. An array of new avatars from your favorite games will be available, including Bloodborne, Journey, Ghost of Tsushima, God of War, The Last of Us Part II, The Last of Us Remastered, Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End and many more.
Mute all Mics from Quick Menu
We’ve added an option to “Mute all Microphones” in the Quick Menu, so you can easily mute your mics while gaming.
Simplified and more flexible Parental Controls
Under Parental Controls, we’re combining the ‘Communicating with Other Players’ and ‘Viewing Content Created by other Players’ into one setting – ‘Communication and User Generated Content’- to cover both areas of communication and UGC sharing. This offers a simpler setting that’s easier for parents to understand and apply to their children.
In addition, children can send a request to their parents to use communications features in specific games. When a child sends this request, the parent will receive an email notification and can choose to make an exception for that game and allow the child to use its communications and UGC features. This will provide more flexibility to both parents and children.
Enhanced 2-Step Verification
The 2-Step Verification (2SV) feature on PS4 will be enhanced to support third party authenticator apps as an option during the activation flow and 2SV sign-in across PS4, mobile and web.
Removal of Event Creation and Private Community Creation
After 8.00, you will no longer be able to create Events or access existing Events created by other users.
We’re also removing the ability to create private Communities under the Community app on PS4. If you already have existing private Communities, you can continue to access them.
Updates to Remote Play App on Mobile and PC
At the same time as 8.00, the existing PS4 Remote Play app on mobile (iOS/Android), Windows PC and Mac, will change its name to PS Remote Play, and the option to connect to PS5 will be added. You’ll need to sign in to PSN from your PS5 to be able to access the feature, so sit tight until PS5 launches this November!
As a reminder, a PS4 system with a wired connection via a LAN cable is recommended to download the update.
Worst update ever.
Updating the free avatars is seriously appreciated! Although I will always be attached to my little spiral.
This chat thing sucks. You cant see who is in a party, you cant join a party without a invite, you cant jump from party to party to see what someone may need help with, and other problems with it. I hope you fix it cause a lot of people are talking about moving to xbox if you don’t. It was fine the way it was. Cant you just record in the old way?
The party system sucks now. You cant join parties that exist unless you are added to a messaging group? That dumb and so inefficient. Party and message chat made much more sense separately. You cant join other parties. Why did we take steps backwards? I loved the party system..now xbox has the better working party, and theirs is junk. Give us back the real party system.
I used the brawlhalla community to find people to play with. I just scrolled, joined a party, and I played my game. Now I have to look at the message board, See if somebody is active, message them, have them invite me, and then join their party… This update adds an extra hassle, and simply makes me not want to use communities anymore. One thing I’m fine with though is the party chat voice recording. It gives me the ability to report DDOS’s attackers with a good amount of proof, and lowers the amount of hate speech people like myself have to deal with on a daily basis
After the update, my PS4 is now having audio lag and sound popping. The audio was perfectly fine before the update. At first I thought my tv was failing, but the audio on my other consoles was fine. Now, when I turn on my PS4 it makes this annoying popping and static sound. I’ve restarted the console, reconnected the cables and tested the HDMI, THRICE. But the issue continues. This affects the games, cuts the audio or lags it for about one or two seconds. Couldn’t even stand playing for half an hour. I hope you can fix it, fast.
Update 8.0 could not have come at a worse time. The party and chat system on PS4 is a vital social network for many of us particularly during these Covid19 times and to have it wrenched away so savagely is offensive and distressing for millions of players and downright dishonorable for Sony to create a system where we can no longer play together.
What were you thinking, Sony? Fix this before the Xbox releases, or you could lose devoted fans to what used to be an inferior platform.
I just bought my first PC Game in 4 years because of this update.
Temporally coincidental to this update, regarding PlayStation Store, do not remove the web browser / mobile version’s functionality for apps, avatars, themes, PS3, PSP, and Vita/PSTV content. The on-console Store apps are borderline useless (or entirely defunct, in the case of the PSP), with several items only accessible via the current web version. Furthermore, after all these years, there are users like me with thousands of items in their Download Lists, but there is no way of sorting, filtering, or searching through these lists except through user-created browser extensions, like the eminently useful PSDLE. Without community efforts, the usability of my legacy systems would be severely hampered. If you’re going to chokepoint functionality this hard, just close the entire range of the Stores; otherwise, keep something up for us to get any kind of mileage out of your aged setups.
I’m sorry but this update has done nothing but joining parties even harder and more annoying. The old system was absolutely fine and much easier for others who aren’t in a group chat to join parties. All I’m saying is your doing the community a favour by going back to the old system.
So yea, I got the “You’re restricted from using communication features” message and can’t play 2K now……Someone better damn be fixing it
Xbox would have done you dirty like this