The Share Button Will Be The PS4’s Most Important Legacy
How a humble button on the controller has influenced gaming culture at large and all game consoles going forward
I can’t say I would have stuck with Ghost of Tsushima — a game I ended up liking a lot despite its numerous shortcomings — if I hadn’t been so completely won over by its photo mode. The mode, which lets you meticulously frame and filter your photos, changing the time, weather, and the expression on protagonist Jin’s face, is brilliant. You can turn the game’s moments of levity, poignancy, and terror into singular pieces of art, or even create moments that didn’t really happen.
It’s also something I probably wouldn’t have bothered with at all if it wasn’t so easy to share PS4 screenshots on Twitter, and my feed hadn’t been full of other people’s efforts. It was something I wanted to be a part of, and I ended up getting sucked in by the rest of the game, too.
As the PS4’s time as Sony’s primary console comes to an end, I’ve been thinking about the system’s legacy. It had many more important exclusives than the Xbox One, as well as an interface and a controller that I preferred. Third-party games tended to perform better on it, too, and I had an easier time finding friends to play Destiny and Overwatch with. It is, as far as I’m concerned, a great system. But I don’t think any element introduced by the PS4, be it a gameplay mechanic, interface option, or anything else, was more important — and has proved more essential for systems going forward — than the DualShock 4's share button.
Sharing your gameplay has become a huge part of gaming culture thanks to Twitch, YouTube, and the various other platforms that have popped up and died off over the last decade. It’s possible to experience games without really playing them yourselves, and games are designed with streaming compatibility in mind. But I’ve never had any interest in becoming a streamer or making videos. I just, on occasion, want to share a nice skybox in The Last of Us Part II, a shot I’ve tinkered with in Spider-Man’s photo mode, or a short video of a comeback in Tetris Effect. I want to be part of a conversation rather than the center of attention, and the Share button is perfect for that.
Yes, this is something you’ve always been able to do on PC. But seeing a feature like this worked so elegantly into a console, to have the button right there on the controller, has really encouraged me to keep records of and share my experiences.
The more I think about the big AAA-exclusives that flooded onto the PS4 a few times a year, the less revolutionary and special they seemed (Bloodborne is probably the exception, even if it’s not a game I’ve personally put the time into). They were, by and large, better, shinier, more polished versions of the PS3 and Xbox 360 games I enjoyed. And that’s fine! It just means that, ultimately, I personally don’t think they’re what defined the system. I think it’s that one little button, and how easy it was to show off the games I enjoyed on the system.
I don’t think any element introduced by the PS4, be it a gameplay mechanic, interface option, or anything else, was more important — and has proved more essential for systems going forward — than the DualShock 4’s share button.
For Sony, it’s all free marketing that players are happy to take part in. They want to share short little videos of their impressive God of War kills, share the vistas of Uncharted 4, or draw attention to a smaller game that isn’t getting as much traction. As someone who generally prioritizes single-player games over multiplayer, the “share” button allows me to still enjoy a social element with these games, to connect with other players, or share what I’m enjoying. I don’t need to edit together a meticulous video essay about why Ghost of Tsushima succeeds despite its tired mission designs, but I absolutely need to share a shot of Jin barrelling off a cliff on horseback.
I’ve found myself, across this generation, wondering if things would have been different for Microsoft if the default Xbox One controller had a share button on it. You can take screenshots and videos on Xbox One, but it’s just slightly too convoluted to be reliable. Making it a single button press on the PS4 was a genius move. Letting me quickly tweet out a screenshot or video from my system without needing to close the game was something no console had ever allowed me to do with such ease.
There were wider implications here, too. As a critic, it’s always interesting to which platforms games get reviewed on, and the Xbox One has lagged behind since it released in this regard. When it comes to console review copy requests, PS4 (and later Switch for indies) became the default — and a large part of that is because it’s just a bit easier to take and share screenshots.
It also allowed for the rise of Photo Mode, and with it, the art of digital photography. At some point this generation, Photo mode crossed over from being a cool curio to an important feature, blowing the digital photography community wide open. It’s now possible to take a great in-game photo in many big games without needing to tinker with code, find a way to unlock the camera, or really have any knowledge beyond which button starts photo mode — and without the PS4’s share button, I doubt these would have taken off in the same way.
Nintendo made sure to include their version of a share button with the Switch, too. It’s a less powerful system, so there are fewer “look at this stunning representation of what’s now possible visually” shares going up on Twitter — but that doesn’t make it any less important a part of Nintendo’s device. It was, I believe, the Switch’s share button that has propelled Animal Crossing: New Horizons to 22 million in sales. “I am enjoying my island” is nowhere near as powerful as “check out this thing on my island,” and the allure of a game about sharing the fruits of your labor is much stronger when you can post a photo to Twitter easily. Sharing shots of Breath of the Wild was an essential part of the experience in the game’s early days, too. Players showed off the corners of the maps they’d discovered, the obscure solutions to problems they’d found — a huge part of the game’s legacy is tied into the way players were able to share their experiences.
And now, if you’ve been taking plenty of screenshots, it’s possible to chart the system’s entire life in your Capture Gallery. It’s fascinating going through now and recalling all my experiences with the games I’ve played on PS4, and having these screenshots means that I have records of the moments that stood out to me. On a basic consumer level, it means that I’m going into the next generation with a sense of nostalgia and investment in the games I’ve enjoyed on Sony’s system, and a desire to keep that going.
It was, I believe, the Switch’s share button that has propelled Animal Crossing: New Horizons to 22 million in sales.
A “share” button is inevitably going to be part of every single console controller released from now on. Ten years from now, I’ll be editing a photo mode shot from Assassin’s Creed: This One’s Finally Set In Feudal Japan to ramp up the contrast and show how the new lighting model emphasizes the fully-rendered veins under the character’s skin, and one of my followers on whatever replaces Twitter will see the shot and be convinced to play the game, too. Perhaps, in time, developers will find new ways to turn the share button more explicitly into a marketing tool, and it will lose some of its shine. But as the generation winds down, I think adding this button to the DualShock 4 was the most important PS4 design choice that Sony made.
