Developers can disable PS4 media sharing capabilities

Developers can disable the "share" button featured on the PlayStation 4 controller, Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida revealed in an interview with 4Gamer.net.

"There will be parts of a game that the maker does not want people to be able to see," Yoshida said in the interview translated by Edge Online. "For example, on Vita, developers can in certain scenes disable the feature that lets users take a screenshot, and (the Share function) will have a similar mechanism. The creator may not want to make video of the final boss sharable, for instance."

Yoshida also explained that the "share" button was created from the company's goal to make it easier to share videos, when "one day a member of our in-house production team just said, ‘How about a Share button?' We called out in unison, ‘That's it!'"

He said that sharing videos was an important part of enjoying video games and related back to his own love of playing Dark Souls. When he didn't have time to play the game as often as he wanted, he'd watch videos instead. "By doing that, you can find other ways to play the game and read comments by other users," Yoshida explained.

With the "share" button, users will be able to scan through sections of a game they've played and pick segments to upload to social networks. The PS4 will also offer the ability to stream games in realtime.

Polygon contacted Sony for more information on Yoshida's comments and will update as more information comes to hand.