Facebook cools enthusiasm for dedicated console apps

PS4 will offer Facebook integration but, like Xbox One, won’t have a dedicated app for the console.

That’s because the social network found that such apps took a lot of effort to maintain and ultimately offered little benefit to users.

"One of the things that came out of our experience with the previous generation of consoles is that we found that maintaining the native apps was a relatively high maintenance burden, and didn’t really lead to a high fidelity experience," Facebook engineer Colin Creitz told Polygon.

"In this generation of consoles, all of them have very capable browsers. The PS4’s browser [is] actually pretty pleasant."

Creitz added that on PS4 players will be able to use elements of their Facebook page, such as their Facebook profile pic, on PSN.

"One of the things I hope [we add] is that there’ll be some ability at the game level to say ‘I want to play with people who will reveal their real identity,’" he added.

"They don’t have to be my friends yet, but right now I just turn off voice chat in Madden when I play with internet randoms, because I’ve already had the only conversation you’ll ever have with those guys."