So have you ever woken up on a Saturday morning to find a bunch of texts on your phone from your buddies about a crazy Friday night? That’s pretty much what is happening to me right now. Twitch.tv exploded last night with one stream even breaking 200,000 views with Sony’s own Shuhei Yoshida and Adam Boyes among the viewers.
Let me rewind things back a bit. Sony’s PlayStation 4 has the ability to instantly stream to Twitch.tv via the share function… something we all pretty much knew was a way to share our gaming experiences with others. Well that all changed last night. Apparently nobody at Sony or Twitch took into much consideration that using the share function for The Playroom basically gives anyone the ability to broadcast full screen live video (albeit mirrored).
This lead to a creative couple from Spokane, Washington to make The Spartan Show. Through the use of Twitch streaming The Playroom, they created a live internet talk show that was taking live callers. One of those callers was none other than Sony’s own Adam Boyes, who congratulated the couple on making the show. Sony knows good PR when they see it… and Shuhei Yoshida was quick to join in as well.
@starkweatherTD I’m watching it 🙂
— Shuhei Yoshida (@yosp) November 22, 2013
Cool to dial in to the @thespartanshow even though I sound sick as a dog!
— Adam Boyes (@amboyes) November 22, 2013
Have you checked #thespartanshow? Pretty amazing! Two PS4 owners using The Playroom to host thier own TV show > http://t.co/ljKOUNEpcL
— PlayStation Europe (@PlayStationEU) November 22, 2013
This is history in the making and a new technology being used in a unique way that was not the original intention.
So of course… a bunch of other people have to go fuck that up!
A (dirty) laundry list of bad deeds ensued through out the night on Twitch. Men stripped their passed out wives nude, a lot of drugs were used and showcased, and there was even some public urination. Thanks to some quick action from Twitch, most of those consoles were banned… but the damage is already done.
This kind of lewd behavior is nothing new to Twitch. There’s been girls playing League of Legends in the nude and the like… but the ease of use of Twitch on PS4 is an entirely new beast. This allows anyone to stream online publicly from any room in their house. Also this isn’t a computer… it’s a gaming console… and kids play gaming consoles.
Remember the story just two weeks ago about Nintendo discontinuing Swapnote to protect children from predators? With well over a million PS4 units in homes around the world and The Playroom pre-installed on all of them, this is a big concern. Thankfully the PS4 camera has to be purchased separately, so that cuts down the numbers quite a bit. However Xbox One has a mandatory Kinect in every box, with a similar Twitch app coming next year.
This is definitely going to be a major point of debate, and without a doubt going to be all over the mainstream press in the next week or so. For actual footage of last night, you can watch my video recap below.
