Today Sony Computer Entertainment released the new 1.7 firmware update, and published the official patch notes. Turns out, though, that the notes aren’t really complete, and the update includes several stealthy changes that Sony did not list, including some very relevant ones, like the ability to log in a second user with the same DualShock 4 controller, as discovered by NeoGAF user Guymelef and others.
- Notifications: New notification type: From PlayStation.
- System: You can now log in with multiple users with a single DualShock 4 controller without logging out the others.
- System: The “What’s New” menu now has timestamps.
- System: The log-in screen won’t be displayed anymore when reconnecting the DS4.
- System: When a game crashes you can now choose to attach a video clip in the error report and send it to Sony.
- System: Added option to automatically send error reports to Sony.
- Settings – Audio: You can now force the PS4 to output 5.1 channel audio over HDMI even if it detects 7.1 channel support.
- Settings – Video: “Deep Colur Output” added. It’s possible to set it to “off” and “automatic”.
- Share: It’s now possible to upload multiple screenshots to Facebook at the same time.
- Streaming: Comments/viewers notifications added when you are in a full screen streaming.
- Streaming: You can now upload screenshots and video while broadcasting.
- Streaming: You can now view comments without having to switch streaming modes.
In addition to the changes listed above, multiple users are reporting that the whole operating system is now faster, especially on the PSN storefront,on the trophies screen, on the “What’s New” section and during overall multitasking.
Finally, others are also mentioning that the bug that caused the “Share” button to record the wrong segment of footage has been corrected, and now it correctly records the latest fifteen minutes of gameplay.
One thing is for sure: firmware update 1.7 is definitely a very good step in the right direction for PS4. Hopefully the next one will include other popular requests like MP3 playback and online notifications from the friend list.