CoD Ghosts, Advanced Warfare blocks PS4 Share Play for now

Sony has just released its latest system update for the PlayStation 4 and it has poured a lot of focus on the "virtual couch" features of the new Share Play. But if you're quite excited to let others view your screen, or convince others to play your game for you, better calm down a bit and take stock of your games. Unsurprisingly, not all titles support the share-your-controller/screen feature, with some actively blocking it out. Call of Duty: Ghost and Call of Duty Advanced Warfare happens to be two of them.

Attempting to share your Advanced Warfare screen apparently results in the following message:

"The host's game screen is not displayed because the current scene is a blocked scene for Share Play. Wait until the blocked scene has finished."

The older Ghost, on the other hand, has a more wordy tale to tell:

"Viewing the game screen that the host is currently playing is not allowed due to content restrictions in your country or region. If the host starts a game that you can view, the game screen will be displayed."

The real scoop behind the block actually has little to do with regional content locks, though those might actually apply too at some point in the future. For now, it's more of a QA issue for game developers and publishers, in this particular instance, Activision.

Share Play arrived with the PS4 system firmware 2.0 released just last week. The feature is a system-level one, which means it is available for all games to use and take advantage of, which is what Sony hopes to happen. In an ideal world, game developers just need to flick the switch. But game development is anything but ideal. Activision reveals that they weren't able to get hold of the feature until after the launch, which gives the very little time to test it with current games. In some cases, console makers would give studios and publishers a heads up or a way to test out features in advance. For some reason, Sony didn't consider Share Play to be invasive or disruptive enough to warrant that. Then again, it isn't Sony's name that's on the line should games break because of Share Play.

Naturally, Activision doesn't want to take the blame either and wants to spend more time testing Share Play with the latest Call of Duty titles before allowing gamers to use the feature. So yes, there is still hope that the feature will be unblocked in the hopefully very near future. When that will happen, however, is the real question now.

VIA: Eurogamer