Spotify coming to PS3 and PS4; Music Unlimited shutting down


Recommended Posts

It's suggests it because if Music Unlimited were such a special case and so ingrained into the OS it wouldn't be possible to easily swap it for another, especially third party, app. If they can switch from Music Unlimited to Spotify then they could switch from Music Unlimited to Pandora or Music Unlimited to iHeart Radio, or anything else. 

 

Yes, they could switch it to any ONE other service. but not another app that runs in the background using hooks. You're right, that's what it suggests, 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes, they could switch it to any ONE other service. but not another app that runs in the background using hooks. You're right, that's what it suggests, 

 

Once again it doesn't have to run another full app in the background in order to play music while you game.  I went over that in post #14 so there's really no point to repeat it again.  The full Pandora app lets say doesn't have to be running in order for music to stream form Pandora servers to the console during gaming.  If that's the way the Xbox One does it that's great but it's not the ONLY way music can stream to a console.  If music can stream from Music Unlimited or Spotify servers then it could stream from Pandora or iHeartRadio servers as well if Sony wanted to allow them to do so.  There's no real technical difference there, they'd just need a UI for you to pick between them if you have multiple installed.  You only need ONE at a time.  You aren't going to be streaming from Pandora AND Spotify AND iHeartRadio at the same time while you play your game.  Sony would just need to expose to the user a UI to do the exact same thing they are already doing to switch from Music Unlimited to Spotify.  So yeah, you'd have ONE service that can play background music during games, but you'd be able to decide which ONE service that is.

 

It's not like the Sony System Software is just some super basic firmware that Sony created from scratch to do only the few limited things they need it to do.  The Orbis OS as it's called is a fork a FreeBSD which is a full fledged desktop/server OS.  It always running and has GIGS of RAM available to it (That's why devs only have access to 5 or so of the 8GB of RAM... the OS reserves the rest) so the OS alone has more RAM than the entire last gen consoles have.  It's also got a core on the main CPU always reserved for it (which is why devs only have access to 6 of the 8 cores... the last one is disabled to improve yields.)  Heck the PS4 also has another ARM based Auxiliary processor with it's own 256MB of RAM for the OS to use that isn't even exposed to developers at all.  Playing background music isn't hard, it doesn't require a full app to be multitasking, it's already being done today with Music Unlimited.  The PS4 has more than enough power and most of the software is already there to do it (Music Unlimited is doing it and Spotify will be) Sony just doesn't WANT to because they want to get rid of Music Unlimited and they're almost certainly getting something from Spotify for letting them be the "official" music app.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am confused at the debate here regarding the music apps on the PS4. To me it sounds like Hawkman is saying that the PS4 is only capable of having one music app coded in the system due to software restrictions, meaning you have to have one service removed before you can add a different service.

 

Asmodai is saying that you can have as many music apps as you want, so long as only one is being used at a time.

 

You guys are confusing me here, and I don't know which is accurate? Not that it matters really. But is there something from Sony's SDK that states how their music integration works in the system and which apps can be allowed and multi-tasked?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's not like the Sony System Software is just some super basic firmware that Sony created from scratch to do only the few limited things they need it to do.  The Orbis OS as it's called is a fork a FreeBSD which is a full fledged desktop/server OS. 

it uses the kernel,not the os. the ps4 UI/shell and all apps run basically as one big webpage in a full screen browser window,hardly a desktop os.

 

It's also got a core on the main CPU always reserved for it (which is why devs only have access to 6 of the 8 cores... the last one is disabled to improve yields.)

nope. the os has access to both cores, one isn't disabled. youre mixing up the disabled gpu shaders.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

it uses the kernel,not the os. the ps4 UI/shell and all apps run basically as one big webpage in a full screen browser window,hardly a desktop os.

I guess it depends on what you call an OS then. On FreeBSD the UI/shell most often used is XWindows but I don't think FreeBSD users consider XWindows an OS or an essential part of the OS. A "Server Core" installation of Windows Server also lacks the fancy GUI yet it's still running the Windows OS. Linux is generally considered an OS... yet Linux is just a kernel as well. It also often runs XWindows on top of that. The OS is the kernel, it's not uncommon to use the terms interchangeably. You're just splitting hairs here. The point was that it doesn't have some minimal BIOS like software it has a fully functional kernel that supports multitasking and such. It's limited in what it can do because Sony want's to limit access not because it's so minimalist it's technically incapable of doing it.

 

nope. the os has access to both cores, one isn't disabled. youre mixing up the disabled gpu shaders.

You're splitting hairs again. This only makes my point stronger that it has two cores instead of one. I might have got the exact amount of RAM wrong too if you want to pick at that as well. I just pulled the numbers out of memory because it wasn't important to get the EXACT figure right. The point was just that the OS has more than enough power available to it, even when a game is running, to stream music in the background.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am confused at the debate here regarding the music apps on the PS4. To me it sounds like Hawkman is saying that the PS4 is only capable of having one music app coded in the system due to software restrictions, meaning you have to have one service removed before you can add a different service.

 

Asmodai is saying that you can have as many music apps as you want, so long as only one is being used at a time.

 

You guys are confusing me here, and I don't know which is accurate? Not that it matters really. But is there something from Sony's SDK that states how their music integration works in the system and which apps can be allowed and multi-tasked?

 

The PS4 currently has one music app that you can use.  Right now it's Music Unlimited but this thread is about them switching it to Spotify.  That's how things are now just to be clear.

 

The debate between Hawkman and I is just about WHY there is only one app.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

The debate between Hawkman and I is just about WHY there is only one app.

Right. And so which one of you is factually correct! I am just curious. I don't know why the OS on a console interests me, but it does.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As for keeping up with MS I don't think they really care that much about providing more third party music options than MS. As long as they continue to outsell MS globally they don't need to "keep up" with individual features. I seriously doubt people are going to ditch PS4 for Xbox One because it has better music streaming choices. It has better TV support already and better voice commands but none of that are it's core functions. They're just making this change at all because they want to get rid of Music Unlimited and they don't want it to actually lose features. Since they don't want to provide it anymore they are allowing someone else to and hey, if they can make a little $$ by offering exclusivity then all the better.

I definitely agree that Sony has at least improved its tv support and voice command support, but I hope they are going to keep improving because they haven't quite matched the competition yet. MS isn't sitting still either, so the bar keeps moving.

I really don't want to see Sony sit on their lead and not feel like they should keep that lead via strong support on the software side. All of these little things turn into an overall impression of the system and if that is a good impression, that means a lot of happy users.

As far as Spotify, so is the MU app just going to be going away without a replacement media app for local music playback? The announcement details only focus on streaming music based on Spotify's created playlists or lists you build from their database with a premium account. Surely Sony plans to either rebrand the MU app for local playback or the Spotify app will be gaining that functionality.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As far as Spotify, so is the MU app just going to be going away without a replacement media app for local music playback? The announcement details only focus on streaming music based on Spotify's created playlists or lists you build from their database with a premium account. Surely Sony plans to either rebrand the MU app for local playback or the Spotify app will be gaining that functionality.

 

You mean from a USB stick?  I think it's already a separate music app.  Note the MU app on the right side of this pic.

 

630x.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I really don't want to see Sony sit on their lead and not feel like they should keep that lead via strong support on the software side. All of these little things turn into an overall impression of the system and if that is a good impression, that means a lot of happy users.

Oh, I don't think they're going to sit on their lead. I just don't think having multiple music services is a priority for them. They seem to be releasing major updates about once a quarter with bug fixes in between. We're supposed to get another big update this month. I'd like to see it more often as well but Sony isn't the software company MS is. Right now I think their priority is suspend/resume and DLNA for major features. At the same time they're almost certainly evolving their APIs for game developers but that's under NDA so what specific tweaks there are aren't something we can read about on the web. Likewise I'd expect minor UI tweaks. One rumored feature they're also supposedly working on is PS1/PS2 emulation but I haven't heard anything about that for a while now. I wouldn't expect them to put a big focus on music until after DLNA lands and now with this Spotify deal I'd bet it's for at least a year of exclusivity so I wouldn't expect multiple streaming music services now until 2016 (DLNA and local playback and streaming will come well before that).
Link to comment
Share on other sites

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.