Sony has confirmed that support for sharing screenshots and videos on Twitter (I refuse to call it X) via PlayStation consoles will cease to operate from November 13. Sony platforms have featured a Share button since the PS4 launch, used as a means to share your finest gaming moments for all to see. It’s actually the Create button on PS5, but nobody calls it that. There has always been a novelty to it, whether you simply encountered a funny glitch or bagged an epic victory royale, sharing this with your friends was only 🎐a button press and an upload away. Now, thanks to Elon Musk, sharing features will soon be ph♛ased out with no fanfare whatsoever.
An entire button on two generations worth of controllers will only be able to take videos and screenshots locally, beyond uploading YouTube videos, and let’s be honest, who is doing that from the comfort of their home console these days? It’s like asking if someone still uses Ustream. It will take screenshots, but now you’ll need a USB to let anyone see them. The whole point 🦄of the Share button’s introduction was to capitalise on the social media trends of 2013, where we 🅘were all still happily scrolling through the feeds of Twitter and Facebook without a constant encroaching fear of the apocalypse.
Now where am I going to share scr🎀eenshots and videos on a private ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚaccount before review embargoes lift? I mean - YOU SAW NOTHING.
Twitter has been going downhill ever since Elon Musk acquired the social media platform for bil🌊lions, and even before then it was struggling to make a profit for years as it scared off advertisers and refused to buckle down on hate speech. Both of these issues have gotten considerably worse with Musk at the wheel, and there is definitely a chance that he saw there was money to be made from companies like Sony who continue to leverage Twitter on their hardware for sharing purposes. Perhaps there was an awkward conversation about paying for the privilege and Sony refused to play ball, which would explain the incredibly abrupt expiry date of Twitter usage on PlayStation. It is a feature I and many others use all the time, so to phase it out without so much as a warning suggests something deeper going on behind the scenes.
While the Share button is still used for half-baked Twitch streams and YouTube uploads, the immediacy of sharing funny video clips and gorgeous screenshots is being ripped away from us, begging the question whether Sony will introduce its own bespoke solution or phase out the share button altogether in future iterations. Could we see the return of ‘Select’ or a stark change to how modern gaming platforms embrace social media in the landscape of TikTok?
So many questions, but none of which I’m ready to be answered as the PS5’s finest social feature is ripped away without so much as an♍ explanation. It’s the fragile nature of modern technology and unpredictable evolution of social media, but that doesn’t make it any less of a bummer. Where does the PlayStation Share button go from here, and does it even need to exist anymore?
