Sony’s PlayLink is a more social way to interact with games

You can chose who lives or dies!

While Sony had made an announcement about “PlayLink” last night, they didn’t share any of the details about the program. I wondered if it was some kind of push into the mobile market for Sony, but the reality is different. PlayLink refers to a new initiative to make games more social, citing Until Dawn as inspiration. Through PlayLink, you and a few friends will use your smart devices to control a variety of different games.

In the introduction video to Hidden Agenda, one of the few games that is heading to the service, Will Doyle (director for Hidden Agenda) mentions that Sony noticed how people were playing Until Dawn on streaming sites and wanted to better integrate viewer feedback into a playthrough. Instead of simply asking an audience to makes choices for you, PlayLink will allow multiple people to use their smart devices to sort of direct the action.

The second game unveiled, a party game called Thats’s You!, looks to replicate an experience similar to The Jackbox Party Pack. In this, a group of friends are asked various questions about each other and are given tasks like doodling over pictures of their friends. Sounds like a neat way to spend an evening with some pals.

To commemorate the launch of PlayLink, Sony will also be giving out That’s You! to PlayStation Plus members starting on July 4th!

By the end of the year, three more games will also be hitting the service. Frantics is an arcade style game that sounds an awful lot like Mario Party. Knowledge is Power is a trivia based game with support for up to five players. Finally, SingStar Celebration will utilize your cellphone’s microphone (or you can just use your old SingStar mic) to give you a virtual karaoke machine on your PS4.

All in all, this isn’t exactly what I was thinking, but it makes sense. The Jackbox games are a huge hit at conventions and with streamers, so its smart for Sony to try to get into that market. While Hidden Agenda looks pretty neat, the other games sound kind of lackluster. Hopefully Sony won’t drop this after a few months like all their other ideas (I’m looking at you, PlayStation Move!).

Introducing PlayLink for PS4 [PlayStation Blog]