PS4 System Software Update 4.50 Features Detailed

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PS4 System Software Update 4.50 Features Detailed

Starting today, those of you selected for our beta program will get an early peek at some of the new features coming to PS4 with our next major system software update, version 4.50 (codenamed Sasuke). If you signed up for the beta and were chosen, you’ll receive an email with instructions on how to download and get started.

Even if you’re not participating in the beta, we still wanted to give you a quick glance of the key features that will be rolling out with this update. We’re refining the user interface of PS4 even further, and adding highly requested features like external HDD support and custom wallpapers.

External HDD Support

It’s easy to upgrade the HDD that came with your PS4, but if you’re still looking for more storage space on the console, we’ve got you covered. With this update, you have the option to store content to an external HDD. Just plug a USB 3.0 HDD into your PS4, and voilà, you now have more space on the console.

PS4 System Software Update 4.50 external HDD support

This is compatible with HDDs up to 8TB in size. You can download and install applications directly to your extra storage, and the saved contents are easily manageable through the settings menu.

Also, all the applications saved in the external HDD will appear in the Content Launcher of the Home Screen so it’s easy to keep track of what apps you launched recently.

Please note: user save files are still stored locally on your PS4 HDD. Only games and applications are stored externally.

Custom Wallpapers

This update adds the ability to set your favorite in-game screenshot as the background image for PS4’s home screen. Drop-shadows on text, and the option to dim the Function Area, will help keep the system icons and texts on the home screen clearly visible even if the background image you selected is super bright.

You can also edit screenshots using Photo Mode in Sharefactory to make your one-and-only custom wallpaper.

Quick Menu Refresh

As you may know, in the last system update we overhauled the PS4 Quick Menu feature (the menu that appears after a long press of the PS button on DualShock 4).

This update brings additional improvements to make it even more accessible. Now the Quick Menu will cover even less of your gameplay screen, and you’ll be able to access handy Party features via Online Friends, like creating new parties, inviting friends, and joining parties, without transitioning to the separate Party app. The goal is to keep you in the game — and not stuck in menus.

Simplified Notification List

Before this update, the Notifications app had a variety of tabs on the left-hand side, like Game Alerts, Downloads, Uploads, and more. We’ve condensed all of the tabs to a single simplified list, making it easier to see all of your notifications all at-a-glance.

You can also quickly access the Notification settings from the Options Menu to turn off or customize which pop-up notifications appear on your screen, so you’re only being notified about your top priorities.

Post on PlayStation Network Activity Feeds

We’re adding the ability to post directly into the Activity Feed, which appears in a variety of places across the console, including What’s New. Under What’s New, you’ll see a new option to post things like text, screenshots, and gifs directly into your Activity Feed. You can also tag games or other users to make sure they don’t miss your post. It’s a great way to show off your greatest triumphs.

Tying into this new feature, Live from PlayStation will show screenshots that users uploaded to PSN as a Public Activity, so you can show off your best gameplay moments not only to your friends, but to users around the globe.

3D Blu-rays on PlayStation VR

If you’re a fan of 3D movies, and you own PlayStation VR, we’ve got good news — this update adds the ability to view 3D movies in stereoscopic 3D directly on the PS VR headset. Grab some popcorn and enjoy!

There are more features included in 4.50, so make sure to keep an eye out for additional info, including launch timing, in the weeks to come.

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878 Comments

  • What about removing the bloatware that makes the home screen extremely messy? You should let is do our own cleanup… The worst thing is to have dozens of streaming apps that I don’t use messing everything and that I can’t remove at all…

  • BEST UPDATE EVER!!!

  • I’d really like to see a capability to support multiple monitors either for a multi-screen display for a single player, or true multiplayer functionality where each player has a screen. PCs can handle multiple monitors, why not a PS4?

  • How about adding the TIME to the quick menu? The quick menu was there so you don’t have to fully leave the game for most tasks but when you want to do quick time check, you need to go back to the main menu….please find an intern to code the time in the quick menu.

  • Update looks great. Unfortunately, I haven’t been chosen yet again. Not sure what the criteria are.

  • You have no idea how great it is here this kind of news. It was around last week when I actually just tried my external hard drive and just found out that it didn’t work and that hard drive was actually plugged into a Nintendo Wii U. Now I understand this Wii U is not exactly all that popular, however I still had to uninstall many games that were on that hard drive system and it wasn’t really that great of a move until I read this article of course. That being said just reading this alone that the PS4 will support external hard drives turns a situation that was seen as pointless to do, now turns into a feature that I’m excited for. Seriously I can’t wait to get my hands on this update.

  • This is best news yet. I can now buy an external hard drive and use it for storage on my ps4

  • Now all we needs is live theme wallpapers that we can customers from our own media player/flash drives i rather see my own personal Screensaver than a screenshot of a game plus backward compatibility i have too many ps3 games i miss playing

  • I’ve been waiting for this feature for a long time like many others. The only concern I have is will we be able to play our games from the ext hdd or will it be used just to store them? I have an ext hdd on my xbox one and I’m actually able to play my games from it. The last thing I heard from Sony was an ext hdd can only be used to store games and not play them from a ext hdd. Need some clarification on this from Sony.

    • Yeah now that I read it again you’re right, it never actually says “Games” it only mentions “Content” and “Applications”… That would suck if we can’t install and launch games on/from the external HDD.

    • How long ago was this when you heard you can’t play games? Recently? Like around the time of this update (last month or so)? Hopefully you heard this a longer time ago and it wasn’t said in context of this update. I don’t see why it couldn’t be set up through a firmware update so I feel like whoever said that wasn’t right. The post doesn’t say games but it does say apps. Games are apps and get closed through the Close Application option, so when I read this I understood “apps” to include games, and will be surprised if it turns out it does not.

  • I didn’t even hear about a beta sign up :/. Pretty disappointed about that considering I’ve signed up for the last two. The 3D feature with VR sounds freaking incredible and I definitely want to try it right now. Now I may actually have a reason to buy a 3D movie. That would be kind of cool if it worked with ps now games that support 3D.

  • It says you can store more “content” on an external hard drive. Does this include games or is it just apps and media?

  • The greatest update till now. The HDD feature made my whole week! Is there any release date?

  • As someone who owns both leading consoles this generation and much prefers the PS4, this is awesome news! The other console has for the most part been ahead of the game in terms of features/functionality and while Sony has slowly but consistently added many user requested features, they’ve also added a bunch that very few of us or even none have requested so it’s been frustrating at times. However THIS is a HUGE update! External HDD Support – FINALLY! Yes it’s always been easy to swap out HDD’s with PS3 and PS4. However the issue is that the largest 2.5″ internal HDD’s can currently go is 2 TB – which is what I put in mine. But with today’s games being 50, 60 and even 70 GB, that fills up faster than people think. Screenshots as wallpapers, posting screenshots/videos to the Activity Feed and more! Honestly all of this along with the recent additions like the ability to appear offline, folders etc and pretty much ALL of the remaining function/feature advantages the other console had are gone. Now if they could just have the Turn Off Controller option right there after holding down the PS button (like PS3 had) I’d be happy as it’s still like 3 or 4 button presses to do this.

  • What happens if you unplug the external that has games installed on it while on the home screen or while in rest mode? Also what happens to the installed games on the home screen after unplug. Will they disappear or will they still be there but inacessible?

    • Why would you unplug the HDD but especially while the system is in rest mode? It will be formatted in such a way that it will ONLY be usable on your PS4 so you won’t be able to use the drive on other devices without reformatting it.

    • Sleepless Knight, if the hard drive goes into the front USB, where my charger and PSVR go, I will want to take out the drive regularly. Not sure if that is why DuoMax would unplug it but I was wondering the same thing cuz I have VR and game enough that one controller needs to be charging while I’m using another. I would try to choose an efficient arrangement of games to put on the External Drive, games I wouldn’t play as often so I don’t usually need the drive in.

    • KLEEBANKLIBAN Yeah I can understand that for sure. I like the fact they added a rear USB port to the PS4 Pro and for those that have that system, the external HDD could just stay plugged in the entire time leaving the 2 front USB ports for PSVR and charging a controller or whatever other USB device could plug in there

      For me I use the Wireless Gold headset so one of my 2 front ports always has the receiver plugged in leaving me with only one free USB port. However I bought an external charging dock for my controllers that charges 2 at a time and just plugs into a powerbar or wall outlet. It’s nice because I when one DS4 dies I just pop one off the dock and stick the dead one on and I’m back up and running in 5 seconds. I hope the PS5 has at least 2 front and 2 rear USB ports.

  • When will you offer cheaper tiers of PS+?

    I don’t care AT ALL about the “free” games every month. I just want online save syncing and, to a lesser degree, online multiplayer.
    I’ve already shifted most of my online gaming to PC, though (you know… where it’s actually FREE), so the only thing I *really* want is the game save syncing.

  • Sony, thank you for listening! External Support is something almost everyone has been asking for. Thank you a million times over. Now there’s just one more thing to add (meant to be funny)… Put together a small dev team, and Remaster MotorStorm!

    Great update, looking forward to getting a beta key hopefully! Coming from someone who bounces around on different PS4’s this is a huge deal for me. Keep kicking ass!

  • I really like that Update and look forward to it, but there’s only a small thing, which you could add. It’s when you open the quick menu there’s the time on the bottom.
    Just a small thing, but would be nice to see!

  • External Hard Drive and 3D Blu Ray will be dope! Quick Menu Party features will also be useful.. and creating my own theme with a screenshot should be cool too. Awesome update.

  • Will we have to reformat the HDD before use? I know we did for the ps3. I had to reformat my external to fat32 before the ps3 would recognize it

  • wow i want join beta please ?

  • With external HDD support .. Will I be able to take just my HDD and go-to a friend’s place and on his ps4 login to my account and play my games still?

  • pls update that we can download game updates via computer then transfer to USB. that will be awesome update.

  • ETA?

    Glad about custom wallpapers, but what about custom themes???

    Notifications should be transparent/translucent & should be inset at a margin from the side as well as the top in a translucent/transparent box/bubble (rather than stick out the side of the screen). The background to the text bubble should match the chosen theme color. And drop shadows should apply to notifications as well (PS3 had most of this).

    Notifications should not appear under the stream layer. They should act as an overlay, as it does with video captures.

    The quick menu should also be transparent/translucent & apply drop shadows.

    Where’s video chat? Why is there no video chat app?

    Custom folders for screenshots, game clips, and gifs.

    [Fast Scroll] through Captures list and Friends list by holding R2. Fast skip by 100 at a time via L1 & R1 (I have over 10,000 screenshots & over 600 people on my friends list).

    • “Notifications should not appear under the LIVE STREAM* layer. They should act as an overlay, as it does with video captures. THAT WAY, BIG BLACK BOXES DON’T APPEAR IN LIVE STREAMS”

      Correction with edits*

    • I’d say ETA is 30 days from now, because it’s the time it took from closed beta to release for the previous versions

  • This update sounds amazing. But… You need to step up a little bit more Sony. The one thing I loved about the ps3 and having ps plus is that the PlayStation could be turned off and at my time choosing it would turn on update games and other thing then turn back off. I need that feature back. As must of the time I turn my ps4 off I don’t put it on sleep mode. Then when I come to play a game or whatever… Well you know. Time is of the essence.

    • I don’t think it’ll happen. Sony did a lot of work to integrate a custom low-power ARM processor with 256 MB of RAM to manage the console while in sleep mode.

      I love that while I’m at work, I can browse the PSN Store, buy something and send a command to my PS4 to start the download right away so I can start playing when I get home. The PS3 can’t do that.

  • pretty nice update but sony needs to update its browser and to fix a spotify bug in which a song sometimes cuts off because you open an app or the browser.heads up!

  • Finally external HDD support! At last PS4 has caught up with the Wii U! :)

    Altogether this sounds like the best PS4 firmware update so far. Thank you for listening to your customers!

  • Suits me babes. Just hurry up and give us it

  • Can we bring back 3d movies to the ps store? and bundle with hd? some of us don’t buy blu ray anymore. Also backwards compatible please. Great update though, can’t wait

  • So does this mean I can change the wallpaper on any theme and keep the icons possibly? Also can I have a secondary wallpaper when I scroll up?

  • This is exciting. I upgraded my internal drive I’ll use the old one to play with the external drive feature. Custom wallpapers make this update very exciting. Hope I get to beta it.

  • What does the white pulsing light on the ps4 mean?????

  • Backwards compatibility is a must man I love playstation but ps now is overpriced. We want to pop in an old disc and play.

  • This sounds fantastic! Will it work with my NAS as well?

  • External HD support should’ve been implemented a long time ago, and still no name change option (not that i nedd it, but the majority do). Sony plays catch up with Microsoft and everyone praises them for it, yawn.

  • I just want my games in my trophy list to be able to be alphabetized already.

  • Yea the other issue is USB ports and now you will have one less with a external storage. Even the pro only offers one more USB port and it’s still not enough specially if you own the ps Vr,turtle beaches plus charging a controller. That’s just as much of a issue as storage.

  • Sony could add PS2 PS3 Backwards compatibility for ps4 in next 4.7 update but i think we will never see this thing come true.

  • So cute this patch is
    Wonder when this would be online?

  • Great update. I’ve been wanting custom wallpapers for a long time. One thing however, can we please get a clock on the Quick Menu? It’s a slight oversight to be able to look at friends and stuff, but not be able to check the time.

  • Every single addition is a great update, *really good* and I hope you can perfect it over the following weeks, and pay attention to the sensible comments from people who actually read the article. Really hoping you can consider implementing some of these features in this or a future update.
    Note: I really appreciate the ability to edit screenshots as I was just trying to cut out a piece to send to someone yesterday and found I couldn’t even zoom in on screenshots…

    # confirmation on whether or not we can turn off the lightbar with a software update?

    # Increase party size significantly? BF1, two squads, 10 people. I can see games getting larger and larger so why not just prepare? 16? i know its a long shot but maybe start adding separate rooms in the party, so clans can hold ‘servers’ like teamspeak and ventrilo? PC gaming has large amounts of players in the same game, and seeings as console is trying to keep up surely it is wise?

    • # if we really can’t delete notifications with the simple list, why not use the options button? I personally like the look of it, but I can see how it would be a problem for big uploaders, people constantly donwloading stuff etc, I know it’s not everyone but some kind of optional organisation or filter, add that to the options button? ” >Delete >Delete Multiple >Filter by [Size, Upload, Download, Time Left] ” sound like good options to me.

      # Slideshow wallpapers sounds like a simple addition, limit could even be like 10 so it’s constantly changing, and you could set a timer, ranging from 30 seconds to like 30 minutes? 2 hours? Heck, why not just let us pick any time? Like a clock? 24:00 You can set a limit of 60 and get a new wallpaper every day for two months? How cool. We can download images from communities, and make slideshow albums… **So many possibilitiesI hope it gets explored.**

    • # I am worried about the wording of the external HDD news, is it only apps? Or can we store game data and play games? Also what about using the same HDD on different consoles? (digital content, possibly locked to account?) I feel like the HDD thing is what needs the most improvement, what about viewing capture gallery content without moving it back to console? Will it eventually support the Netflix offline download thing?

      # It’s a shame you guys don’t use a CD/DVD/BR player and not just DVD/BR. I hope you can come back from that with the next generation You disregarded fans of physical media (most of us play disc games??) with no UHD player in PS4 Pro and now you will be *thwarted by Scorpio when it drops*, offering cheaper online, UHD, backwards compatability and more power. You guys rushed into this, and I’m not sure if it was a smart business decision or not but time will tell. Just think how many people bought a PS3 because it included a BR player, I know I was one of them, and a few other people. This is talked about really well in the Forbes article; goo.gl/4637Lz

    • # If we can set screenshots as backgrounds, can the image downloading (from web browser) be returned to PS4 from PS3? You can’t always get a perfect screenshot, and download is often higher quality. Much missed feature.

      # Is the reason we can’t change the PSNstore country so people can’t get cheaper games from different places? I like the idea of change only happening every six months, would probably persuade people not to change just for a singular game sale. Maybe even a geo-location confirmation? idk… But it seems like a basic feature?

      # Is the update in closed alpha? Why are none of us being invited to test?

      # Often I will add a game to my library (PS+ games) and later I will find it not there, which sucks once the month is over because we can’t get it back…

    • # In the capture gallery, can I star clips/screenshots for a certain game and filter by starred / unstarred? Makes it so easy to put together clips you want to, and find the ones you want, could incorporate with ShareFactory so we can see starred content there? I have 250+ 30 second clips saved for a single game, not every clip has something worthwhile I want to move to an external device, and I’d like to quickly be able to find and mark a list of items. Please notice this. Please. It’s such a basic feature and just adds more organisation.

      I wish I could think of more right now, as there are definitely some worthwile improvements to be made, and you’re gonna have to work double-time Sony to stay ahead of Microsoft. Thanks again for this wonderful news, I hope the albums, slideshows, capture gallery star/mark tool, image downloading from website and party limits can be looked into as why wouldn’t you incorporate all of it? :)

      <3 sorry for the absolute rant but this news gave me new energy and I've had these ideas for so long…

    • HOLY CRAP HOW COULD I FORGET?

      PLEASE add a clock to the quick menu, or the date to the homescreen?

      It’s just 8 digits… and if the quick menu is all about being quick, well why can’t I check the time there then?

  • Will we be able to plug the external hard drive into multiple PS4s and access our content?

    Also, just a thought: maybe next update can we make a PS4 and PS4 Pro their own devices? That way we can have a primary device for each system?

  • So you can can’t use older external drives that use 2.0?

    And why can you only use in game screenshots for backgrounds? What’s so bad abo using ANY image as wallpaper?

  • Scans through blog post looking for signs that I can move YouTube and Twitch apps to a folder, and get rid of all the other media apps I never use and have to tolerate navigating through every single time I want to use anything else.

    Nope.

    I’m a simple man, I couldn’t care less about literally any of the stuff that’s actually in this update.

  • And when will we finally be able to hide apps we don’t want? I’m tired of looking at three different NFL tabs, HBO, Hulu, and whatever else that I don’t have, nor want. Playstation Vue, Now, Music, all these things I simply do not care about. I’d love to straight up remove the Playroom from my system because it’s just taking up space (however minuscule), and its an eyesore. Oh yeah, and how about just completely getting rid of the intrusive Discovery notifications system? I can turn off every notification except for those because…?

    Also – why can’t I leave a Party Chat from the quick menu? That’s the one thing I’d want the most in regards to quick menu functionality. Why is every bit of party chat functional through there except leaving one?

    Like…great updates, but there’s still some glaring flaws and functionality missing that is sorely needed.

  • Wow that’s sooooo awesome ! Is there any official release date yet ?

  • External HDD is the best update thus far!!! Next up that should be done is backwards compatibility!! Even if it is a cheap one time fee. Playstation Now is just too expensive.

  • Thank you Sony! You are truly finding your stride with the PS4/Pro!! Thanks for the great update!

  • Great work sony!
    These are two of the biggest things i wanted for PS4. External HDD support and 3D film viewing on PSVR. rush thos out quickly PLEASE!

  • Wow. 3D Blu-rays on PlayStation VR. Happy Tears :) Desperately waiting for you Sasuke.

  • I wonder if this will work :

    I still have my original HDD, inside my console I now have a 1tb HDD, but it seems to be running hotter than the original one, and since about 2 months the ps4 fans are always on, and going fast.

    With this news, I think I will put back the original HDD, and use the 1tb as an external one.

    My question is, can I just plug it and I will be good to go, or I will need to format it, download my games again and store them on it ?

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