Sony has confirmed that its next-generation console the PlayStation 4 will not support MP3s and CDs at launch. However, the features are definitely going to be coming to the console in the future.
Speaking to Giant Bomb's Interview Dumptruck, Sony's Worldwide studios president Shuhei Yoshida explained that the company was very surprised by the intense backlash it received when it made the announcement earlier this week.
"The biggest surprise for us all internally at Sony was there are so many people who passionately reacted to our announcement that there's no MP3 support or CD support on day one," he said. "It's not like we actively decided 'let's not do this feature so people will have to subscribe to Music Unlimited. The focus has been more on the game features. Some of the features we wanted but we couldn't get in on day one."
He continued and added: "We didn't really think about MP3 or CD. We thought 'we're going to do that eventually.'... It caught us off-guard. People don't really talk about these features, right? Some people get really mad and [say] 'I'll cancel my pre-order!' So as we speak, people in Japan - the system guys - are discussing when we can put these features in."
Oddly enough, this news comes off a recent reveal from an online user named TheSixthAxis that the PlayStation 4 also won't support playback of 3D Blu-rays at launch either. According to IGN, DVDs and Blu-rays will be fully supported but the ability to play a 3D Blu-ray will not be available. The "Playing video on disc" section of the User Guide says that the system is not supported.
Meanwhile the PlayStation 3 will continue to be able to play 3D Blu-Rays just fine, which makes this an especially strange choice on the part of Sony. So far no one from Sony has been able to comment on this matter.
