This week during a presentation at the Tokyo Game Show, Xbox senior director of product management and planning Albert Panello was asked if the Xbox One would support the video feed of Sony's PlayStation 4. He did not answer the question directly, but revealed the connection later on in the presentation. For the record, the Xbox One's HDMI pass-through port will supposedly support any HDMI device, hence the PS4 question.
According to Gamespot, Panello eventually began showing the Xbox One's ability to snap applications to the side of the screen during gameplay. "Any application can be snapped to a game…this could be the live TV feed, so if you wanted to be playing Ryse and Killzone at the same time, you could snap that," he said. Obviously either he has no idea what games are in the Xbox library, or threw in a PlayStation connectivity hint. We're hoping for the latter.
The news seemingly indicates that Microsoft has no plans to block the PlayStation 4 video signal when connected to Xbox One. Microsoft currently imagines a customer who plans to connect their cable or satellite TV set-top-box so that the Xbox One can transform into an interactive TV experience; thus owners can play their games and watch HDTV without having to switch HDMI inputs. In a sense, console gamers upgrading their Xbox 360 could preserve backwards compatibility by keeping the older model and connecting it to the Xbox One via the HDMI pass-through port.
Sony just revealed during the Tokyo Game Show that it will not prevent PlayStation 4 owners from capturing video via the console's HDMI port. The current third-generation model uses HDCP copy protection over an HDMI connection, forcing gamers wanting to record gameplay footage to use analog cables like component. While the details are scarce about how the new console handles copyright via HDMI, the PlayStation 4 allows users to stream and record gameplay.
Sony's PlayStation 4 console arrives here in the States on November 15 for $399.99 USD, followed by Microsoft's Xbox One console on November 22 for $499.99 USD.
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