Also custom wallpapers, quick menu refresh, PlayStation Network social status updates, and 3D Blu-ray support for PSVR.
That we’ve been missing PS4 external hard drive support for such a long time seems surprising. It is 2017 and you’d be forgiven for thinking it was already here, unless of course you’ve tried to plug in a USB drive and have been sorely disappointed. Now the latest PS4 system update, version 4.50 – codenamed Update Sasuke – is finally bringing external hard drive support to Sony’s console.
What’s included?
PS4 External Hard Drive Support
This is the big ticket item, of course. You’ll be able to connect USB 3 external hard drives for all sorts of storage-expanding purposes, including downloading and installing games and apps, and saving various data like captures and saved games. Your drive will really have to be USB 3 though, as the older USB 2 standard would be too slow for running installed games.
You’ll also be able to transfer existing stuff from your internal hard drive, to free up space. The PS4 external hard drive feature will support drives up to a whopping 8TB, which is fantastic.
Custom Wallpapers
You can use screenshots you’ve captured using the share button to use as a custom wallpaper. That’s it, really. Oh, except you can tweak the brightness and contrast, or even edit the image in ShareFactory, to make sure it doesn’t drown out the PS4’s UI. That’s useful, we guess.
Quick Menu refresh
This isn’t so much a new feature, as a slight amendment to a recent one. It’ll take up slightly less space on screen when overlaying games.
Post status updates to your PlayStation Network activity feed
Ugh. You’ll be able to post status updates to your PlayStation Network activity feed, just like if you were using Facebook or Twitter. But you know, you could just do that on Facebook or Twitter.
3D Blu-ray support for PSVR
You’ll be able to watch 3D Blu-ray movies in stereoscopic 3D on your PSVR headset. Our recommendation: keep a sick bucket handy. You’ll thank us later.
So in summary, the PS4 update 4.50 includes one absolutely amazing, long overdue feature – PS4 external hard drive support – and four that you could probably live without. Update Sasuke is currently in beta and will be released into the wild soon, assuming no issues arise from the beta testing phase.
