Playstation 4, Playstation 5 record party chat issues

Posted November 2020

By Andy Tran

Cub Reporter

The Playstation community was thrown into a rage when Sony sent a message saying, “Voice chats may be recorded for moderation. By joining, you agree to being recorded.”

Playstations 8.00 update was released on Oct. 16 with an audio recording warning. Playstation players learned about this feature unexpectedly.

When the new Playstation console releases, it will have a feature to record party chats. Sony states that this is in case someone is being harassed or being offended, they can report it and use the last five minutes of the party chat as proof for their case. This may seem like a cool new feature, but Playstation players can no longer make their own private parties, and that's upsetting a lot of the video game community. Some gamers think that the new Playstation 5 controller, that includes a microphone, will be used as spyware, and they are worried about that. Some gamers also say that the newly recorded party chats are invading their privacy, and claim they will no longer have any privacy. Some gamers are also saying that will refuse to buy the new system because of the new recording party chat audios. They are afraid that Sony will gain their personal information and could spy on them.

Sony has apologized for the way they introduced this new feature and claims that it didn’t intend to record all chats. The Playstation Support Account also claims that they do not record party chat audios. Sony has aligned with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to try to use the voice recording feature to act as a form of censorship. This new Playstation feature will more likely mean that gamers will switch to Xbox and start using Microsoft. Many trust Microsoft not record them. As a result, Sony may lose much of its player base.