PlayStation 4 HDD upgradeable, multiplayer requires PS Plus

In my humble opinion, Sony has thoroughly trounced Microsoft with the announcement of a number of key points around its next-gen console.

Shuhei Yoshida, President of Worldwide Studios, Sony Computer Entertainment, has taken to twitter to confirm a number of things, among them that the PlayStation 4’s internal hard disk will be upgradeable. The PS3 was lauded for its easily upgradeable HDD and it seems Sony will continue to trend.

The launch version of the PS4 will sport a 500GB HDD, but in this new age of downloadable games, that might fill up fast.

The only negative thing I can pick out from the news so far, is that Sony will now be requiring a PS Plus subscription for gamers to access multiplayer. Even that isn’t so bad when you assess the features PS Plus offers on top of that, such as the Instant Game Collection program which grants free games each month. Another point goes to Sony (as confirmed by Yoshida) because only one account on the PS4 needs to have PlayStation Plus attached to it for all accounts to be able to access multiplayer features.

In a change from the PS3, Sony now requires a PlayStation Plus membership for gamers to access multiplayer features. Pricing hasn’t changed, and membership can be purchased through PlayStation Store: one-year membership for $49.99, three-month membership for $17.99, one-month membership option for $9.99.

In other better-than-Xbox-One news, Sony has said that the PS4 will not require online authentication for games (unlike the Xbox One).

There will be no game region locking on the PS4 and there will be no restrictions on the purchasing and trading of used games, something which is still in a very grey area for Microsoft, as it will be dictated by publishers, and subject to strict sharing restrictions.

Sony even went so far as to mock Microsoft over its convoluted trade-in system: