PSN Team Looking Into Skill Based Matchmaking; Themes Surprise For 2.0 Launch

Yesterday, Scott McCarthy (Director, Product Planning & Software Innovation at Sony Computer Entertainment America) revealed some upcoming features that the PSN Team has prepared for the PlayStation 4 2.0 firmware update (codenamed Masamune). You can read all that in the official blog post, but McCarthy also spent some time in the comments section revealing some additional information, for 2.0 and beyond.

First of all, despite the fact that lots of information has already been shared regarding PS4 themes, he teased that there is still a surprise waiting for PlayStation users.

I have a Themes surprise coming for everyone on 2.0 launch day. No I am not going tell you what it is.

Moreover, a user asked about adding skill based matchmaking, similarly to Xbox Live. McCarthy explained why it’s not immediately possible and then added that the PSN Team is working on a “best of both worlds” solution:

PS lets publishers / developers choose the server system they want to use that works best for their titles. Currently if we were to make one giant matchmaking system, we would limit the freedoms being given to developers who rely on these freedoms to provide you guys with the best experiences. We are looking into a ‘best of both worlds’ opportunity but currently prioritizing the best experience each game can offer.

Finally, it looks like they are also looking into some way to to organize games and friends data, something that - as a PS4 gamer - I concur is absolutely needed.

Sorting games/ friends data is also a top discussion.

Admittedly, while PlayStation 4 has a great hardware, the software side has been slightly disappointing so far, with many features still missing, frequent PSN downtime and more. It looks like Sony is determined to improve the situation, though; as a reminder, there is still no official release date for PS4 2.0 update but as hinted by McCarthy, they wouldn’t let gamers play the biggest titles of the year without it .

Since the biggest games are coming out in November, it’s safe to assume that it will land in that timeframe.