[PS4]You Cannot Turn The DualShock 4′s Light Bar Off, But Developers Can
Yet another snippet of information from Shuhei Yoshida regarding the PS4. It turns out that you can’t turn off the light bar.
Shuhei Yoshida’s Twitter seems to have exploded after the past few months. I’m not particularly sure why but it has; I myself have sent him a few tweets (Although I got no answers…)!
Here’s the tweet in its full glory. Although it’s short and sweet it definitely answers the questions:
So, developers have control over whether you can turn it off, but why wouldn’t developers take advantage of the light bar? It’s awesome! I wonder how long it takes to program it all? There obviously isn’t just little thing that says;
‘Light switch on – turn green when you use a med kit in the game’
Although, this does of course mean that developers can add in an option in the game for the lightbar to be turned off during play.
A prime example of how the lightbar works can be found in the game ‘Hohokum’. I couldn’t find a decent video to showcase this, but skip to 1:50 on this video and you can see it in action.
I bet they selected the option ‘change colour to match the collectible objective when you get it’.
Although you could just watch the whole thing, it’s hilarious.
Source:
Thanks to Draven who helped proof read this!
Hmm… that would seem quite annoying for me at night. I just can’t handle the brightness haha D: The main reason I don’t play PS Vita at night =/
I hope the light is just a glow then and not some 10000kW torch!
if that’s true you wouldn’t stand the TV -> unless you dim it out (which you can do with Vita too), so lets hope you can at least dim the DS4
If it is more than a glow (something I doubt)
you could fix it with a bit of tape or mod a little switch into your controller that turns the LED of or off.
If they don’t allow turning it off, you can always just put a piece of tape over it.
Does the light bar only show on that area? what’s the point of it? other than it being kinda neat, I don’t see any use for it. Plus, it’ll be kinda annoying if you have to take your eyes off the screen and turn the controller towards you in order to actually see it. If anyone can tell me any other uses for it, please do.
It allows for very accurate tracking with the playtstation eye… coupled with nineaxis sensors this should produce some rather accurate and fast movement controls, theoretically better than anything else we have had so far.
My eyes hurt when I play games without any lights, also it is not recommended to do so, thus that function will be a bit useless for me :P, it’s cool though.
why would it be useless for you? it’s function works with or without lighting.
But the light won’t be very noticeable when lights are on, will it?
But this is crap. If I’m going to play a game, I’ve got no time to watch my controller changing the light. So what’s the use of this feature?
it is for 3d space sensor fusion with a playstation eye camera.
Theoretically this should provide really accurate motion control in a 3D space.
I don’t think the light bar is intended to directly impact the players experience. I mean look on where this light bar is centered, on the plain front of the controller.
So who would turn his controller up during gameplay, just to see the controllers color?
There is something else, they need the light bar for camera tracking, like the wii does it, but the way is turned around. For the wii, the camera is built in the wiimote, and the light comes from the wii lightbar above or under the tv. For the ps3 you have that move controller and the camera connected to the console, for the ps4, I think they just integrated the function of the move controller thus the light bar and the separate available camera.
It’ll be an update later on.
my guess is that the lightbar is meant to shine on whatever is in front of you and not for direct eye-to-bar contact. example: you are getting shot at in a game= flashing red glow of light around the tv/wall. not effective if you have the room lights on, but w/e
it is for 3d space sensor fusion with a playstation eye camera.
not just that though.. moods and game-relevant colors are also a feature
yeah.. when you’re playing in the dark it could be a nice effect
As a semi-competent programmer, I’d like to say that programming the lights really would be that easy. A couple if then statements at max depending on the number of colors you’re using.
You’re right, but you still have no idea what you’re talking about.
maybe he means Devs can include the option in games for players to be able to turn off the light. THAT would make sense.
actually… NO, it wouldn’t ¦)
Why wouldn’t that make sense? It seems like the right thing to do in order to minimise the complaints of people who hate pretty lights.
great post