Sony has officially confirmed that the light bar on the PlayStation 4's DualShock controller cannot be turned off.
On Twitter, Sony Computer Entertainment president Shuhei Yoshida was asked if the controller's light bar could be deactivated to save battery life. His answer was pretty straightforward.
@DN_pro no
— Shuhei Yoshida (@yosp) July 5, 2013
That might not sound like a very big deal, but some fans have raised some very relevant concerns.
The central problem? The PlayStation 4 will no longer ship with the camera peripheral, meaning that almost all of the light bar's functionality will not be usable unless you happen to purchase the $100 add-on. For those who aren't interested in buying the camera, this effectively means that all of your PS4 controllers will have a useless patch of light attached.
This also means that the light bar will be actively draining battery life. Of course, this wouldn't be an issue if it served some kind of function, but as a random bit of illumination, it doesn't make much sense.
Sony has not yet officially commented on these concerns.
Two weeks ago, a report surfaced indicating Sony had scrapped plans to bundle the camera peripheral in order to beat the Xbox One's price. Sony's PlayStation 4 will launch at $399, while Microsoft's console will be priced at $499.
While the lower price point was generally well received, some wondered what Sony had sacrificed in order to win the price war. Now that the PlayStation camera is an optional device, developers can no longer count on its availability, and will therefore be much less likely to develop unique and interesting features around it.
Some fans believe that Sony's decision will win them the launch window in the short-term, but may have relegated the camera to join the EyeToy as a trivial novelty.
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