Playstation Official iPhone App

An Official Playstation App has been a long time coming. The big question, however, has always been ‘How much will it offer?’ Will it create an effective bridge between your iPhone and PS3? Will you be able to communicate with your friends on the PS3 or trigger downloads from the PS Store so they’re ready for when you get home? Well, no, not yet anyway. As it stands the Official Playstation App is a fairly light-weight, but neatly presented App that offers everything for the casual, rather than hardcore, PS3 owner.

This App’s most useful feature so far is the ‘News & Blog’ section, where you can be the first to get the latest updates and thoughts from people high up within Sony’s ranks on, well, Playstation games… obviously. The ‘More than Games’ section features the latest news on those more interested in the techy-hardware side of things, and features the latest news on upcoming peripherals and non-game software. For your Playstation news needs, this App has it all.

Something that initially excited me was the fact that you could log into your PSN account from the App. A whole wave of possibilites appeared before my very eyes. The idea of contacting friends and browsing the PS Store from my phone seemed like a neat option. The reality, however, is that there just isn’t that much to do after you’ve logged in.

Trophy geeks will be happy to see that you can compare trophies with your friends and see how many you have (although it’d be useful to see which trophies you don’t have so you could set yourself targets for whenever you next have an evening of gaming). You can also see who’s online and playing what, but this seems a little arbitrary if you can’t contact these people. Sure, it’s useful to see that your friend’s playing FIFA when you’re on your way home, but it’d be even more useful to tell him to stay online a bit longer so you can give him a drubbing.

For now, the Official Playstation App is basic, but Sony are saying that it will be subject to regular updates so who knows what the future may hold? The very fact that you can log into your PSN account suggests that more options will become available in that area in the future. It would not have been too demanding to be able to set ‘favourite’ games and articles so that you can receive Push Notifications about the things that really interest you, but these are early days. As it stands, it’s a great source for PS news and fans may as well get it for that reason alone… seeing as it’s free.