Playstation Firmware 3.50 Now Available on all PS4 Consoles

Written by Brandon Hofer on April 07, 2016

News: This new firmware brings some requested social features to PS4 along with the ability to appear offline.

Sony has released the 3.50 firmware for PS4 and it brings with it some features that gamers have been wanting for a while. The big new features that are now a part of your PS4 include:

Appear Offline

If you are someone who tends to get a lot of messages or game invites on PSN you know bothersome it can be at times where you simply want to relax and play a game and not worry about anything else. Now you can by going into your profile and telling the PS4 that you want to “appear offline.” This will allow you to do everything you normally do but none of your friends will know you are online.

Friend Online Notification

Say for example you are meeting a group of friends to play a game online. One of the problems has always been that PSN never notified you when your friends signed on. That problem has now been fixed with these notifications that will tell you when a friend has logged in to the PlayStation Network. It should be noted that this isn’t a universal thing though. What I mean by that is that you will have to select a friend on your friends list, press Options and then select ‘Notify When Online.’ It can be a bit cumbersome to do that for every friend but for those people who have hundreds of friends on their list this is the best way to do it so you aren’t continually bombarded every few seconds with notifications that another friend has just signed on.

User Scheduled Events

Using the Events tab you will now be able to schedule gameplay sessions with friends. All you have to do is create an event and you will be able to select the day, time and game and then send it off to your friends. Once the event begins your friends who have registered will automatically be added to a party so that you can begin playing the game quicker. Additionally, you can share an event to a group or community.

Play Together

Using this feature you can see what each member of your party is playing so that you can join a friend’s game or start a new one.

Remote Play

With this new update the PS4 can now remote play with Windows and Mac. Remote Play is compatible with Windows 8.1, Windows 10 or later, OS X 10.10 and OS X 10.11. You will be able to select from different framerate options and resolution options as well. You can use one Dualshock 4 controller for remote play which must be plugged in to your PC or Mac using a USB cable. To download the remote play software on your computer, click here.

What do you think of the big features that Sony has added in this new firmware? What do you want to see added in the future? Some organizational features like folders would sure be nice. Tell us what you think below.