PS3 Update 4.78 & PS Vita Update 3.57 Remove Facebook Functionality

PS3 update 4.78 and PS Vita update 3.57 are now live and ready for your downloading pleasure. Neither update is required to continue gaming though some select titles might be affected by it. Seeing how both updates are fairly small (PS3 – 206MB & PS Vita 137MB), I’d recommend just getting them out of the way to ensure you don’t have any problems going forward.

However unlike other updates that are either vague like ‘bug fixes and system improvements’ or specific where they bring on a host of new features, both updates here are designed to remove functionality from the PS3 and PS Vita. More after the jump.

According to Sony:

PS3 – Main features in system software update version 4.78:

Support for Facebook® features on the system has been discontinued.

Note:

Depending on the software title, you may not be able to play without first updating the PS3 system software.

PS Vita – Main features in system software update version 3.57

Support for Facebook® features on the systems has been discontinued.

It’s odd that both consoles are losing the ability to publish to Facebook things like new Trophies earned or purchases you’ve made. Previously PS Vita had lost out on a series of features like YouTube and Maps, due to Google pulling their API. This obviously upset a great dealer of people which in turn assumed it was Sony pulling the features when it fact, Google was the culprit. It’s worth noting that a lot of other devices were also affected by this and that it wasn’t unique to Sony.

That’s why in this case, it’s hard to know if this is something that’s being orchestrated by Sony or if they are simply responding to changes that are coming from Facebook. Either way, though neither update is mandatory yet, eventually a larger update will hit both consoles which will include this with it so I’d recommend just doing the update and moving along.