With all of the emphasis on social gaming with next-gen consoles, you'd be forgiven for expecting that the consoles would take more of a lead from the social networks that inspired many of the new additions and features. The PS4's current system for listing network friends works perfectly - provided players only have about 20 friends, of course. After this point it can get a little tedious to go scrolling through the list of friends to find the people you are looking for to send messages, share content or push game invites. Searching minimises this issue to a degree, but if you've so many friends added that you can't remember the exact sequences and spellings of everyone's unique PSN IDs, things can get even more frustrating. Players grew up through the early 2000s' 'Myspace generation' will undoubtedly be familiar with grouping friends on a social network into hierarchies, and a similar option would be very useful - if a little demeaning - for the PS4. Allowing players to sort their friends into groups, perhaps by the titles they most regularly play together, would be an excellent customisation to help us find who we are looking for when we're jonesing for a quick online game with a few most trusted allies. The only problem then would be explaining why someone didn't quite make that "top friends" section...
Gareth is 28 years old and lives in Cardiff. Interests include film, TV and an unhealthy amount of Spider-Man comics and Killers songs. Expect constant references to the latter two at all times.
Follow on twitter @GJCartwright.
