Sony has lifted the lid on a new application for mobile and tablet devices to expand the PlayStation experience beyond its own gaming devices.
Hot on the heels of announcing its latest home console-cum-entertainment-hub, the PlayStation 4, the Japanese electronics giant sent out a press release to reveal that a new app is also incoming to enhance gamers’ experience on their iOS and Android devices.
The press release states: “A new application from SCE called "PlayStation®App" will enable iPhone, iPad, and Android based smartphones and tablets to become second screens.
"Once installed on these devices, users can, for example, see maps on their second screens when playing an adventure game, purchase PS4 games while away from home and download it directly to the console at home, or remotely watch other gamers playing on their devices.”
The from what we’re told, the app sounds quite similar to the Xbox SmartGlass app from Microsoft, which enables Xbox 360 owners to control their console, browse the Xbox Live store and more.
Although Sony’s effort appears to be slightly more gaming-focussed, in that it could potentially enable users spectate their friends’ games on the fly, which is one of the numerous online features that unveiled at the PlayStation conference last night.
Sony currently has an application called “PlayStation Official App”, which lets users browse the entire catalogue of PlayStation games, stay in the loop with the world of PlayStation, access the PlayStation Network (PSN) to see what their friends are up to and compare trophies.
Whether Sony will be combining these features into its new app for a unified experience is as-yet unknown, but we hope that’ll be the case.
