Spent a bit more time with my new toy the PlayStation 4 today. It is a lovely piece of kit, and the OS is a considerable refinement from the nice-looking but occasionally clunky XMB OS from the PlayStation 3. Social features are well integrated without being obtrusive, the use of Vita and mobile devices for second screen, touchpad and keyboards is a stroke of genius and the whole thing seems to work really well.

One thing I’m interested to play with a bit once I get some meaty games to get my teeth into — the first of which, Omega Quintet, is arriving tomorrow — is the various uses of the “Share” button. When this was first announced, I kind of thought it was stupid, but the idea has grown on me quite a bit, particularly when I consider how often I’ve shared screenshots from the Vita using its built-in screenshot function and its Twitter app.

For the uninitiated, the Share button on the PS4 controller offers a few different functions. You can use it to take screenshots — and screenshots are also automatically taken when you unlock a Trophy, which is nice, particularly for difficult ones — and then share them via various social media means. You can also record video and either directly upload it or throw it into the ShareFactory app and edit it a bit. And you can also stream gameplay, either with or without commentary from you on the microphone, and with or without your channel’s chat being visible while you play. (If you choose the latter option, you have to play your game with a slightly scaled down display to accommodate the extra interface elements.)

I’m still somewhat skeptical of the appeal of streaming — particularly as it’s not at all easy to convince people to come and watch you — but I’m already starting to come around to the idea a little. Today, for example, while I was waiting for something to download, I took a look at the available streams from the PS4 dashboard and managed to find a number of people playing the new Hyperdimension Neptunia game that just came out in Japan. (It looks wonderful, and I can’t wait to play the inevitable localisation.) Then I took a look at Destiny and Bloodborne to confirm they were quite as unappealing to me as I thought they were. (They were.)

While I have no particular ambition to become a big streamer or YouTube star, it is quite fun to make videos and have people watch you play, and with PS4 it’s really easy to do so. More excitingly, some former colleagues and I came up with the bright idea that because streaming allows you to broadcast party chat as well as gameplay footage and your own microphone, it opens up the interesting possibility of group discussions of a game while someone is playing it live. Sort of like what podcasts based around a specific game do, but with someone actually demonstrating the game — or perhaps exploring it for the first time — live on video while everyone talks.

It’s an exciting possibility, and I’m interested to see if we develop anything along those lines. If nothing else, though, the built-in streaming facility allows me to show the games that I’m most enjoying to people who might not otherwise think to even take a look at them. And that, I think, is one of its most powerful, appealing features; you can talk about a game all you like, but until you actually see it being played, it’s very difficult to determine whether or not it’ll be something you’re into. With streaming, you can effectively show your favourite games to other people as if you’d taken the disc around to their house and booted it up on their system. It’s an increasingly important part of how certain games, developers and publishers build up a fan base. And I’m interested to explore it.