Following up on IOUs post, here is the full Eurogamer interview with Yoshida.

- Being 'always connected online' is not required, but recommended.
- Goal is to have firmware download in background so users do not have to wait to play. (Similar to PS+ autodownloads.)

More 'highlights' below:

Eurogamer: Does the console always need to be connected to the internet?

Shuhei Yoshida: You can play offline, but you may want to keep it connected. The system has the low-power mode - I don't know the official term - that the main system is shut down but the subsystem is awake. Downloading or updating or you can wake it up using either the tablet, smartphone or PS Vita.

Eurogamer: Are all of those things optional? For people who have broadband data limits, for example? They can customise everything?

Shuhei Yoshida: Oh yes, yes, you can go offline totally. Social is big for us, but we understand there are some people who are anti-social! So if you don't want to connect to anyone else, you can do that.
Eurogamer: Which things will definitely be there day-one and which things might take a little longer?

Shuhei Yoshida: Some of the things Dave [Perry] talked about, like cloud gaming, he talked more about visions like "Everything Everywhere", which is the ultimate goal, but we have to start from somewhere.

Eurogamer: So the Gaikai trials on the store and background downloading based on algorithms that compute what you want and what you're doing - those things will definitely be there from day one?

Shuhei Yoshida: Well, we are still in development so we need to wait for the final system to be able to talk about it.

Eurogamer: When will you know the answer? Will you know it at E3?

Shuhei Yoshida I hope so! I hope by E3 most of the things are already in final form.

Eurogamer: Will you have to announce the date, price and launch games at E3?

Shuhei Yoshida Yep, that's possible. We don't decide these things until much closer, so we have no plan or no date set for announcing these things.
Eurogamer: Yes, I imagine he's very busy at this point... Are you going to change the way that you do PSN so there's a subscription multiplayer service like Xbox Live? Because that's the rumour today.

Shuhei Yoshida: We are still working on service plans or features so we are not ready to talk about that yet.
Eurogamer: On that note, you didn't compete that much for third-party exclusive games last time, but Microsoft definitely went after third-party exclusive DLC. Will you pursue that more aggressively this time?

Shuhei Yoshida: I'm not directly managing third-party relations, but it's my understanding that it was too expensive already in PS3 days to ask for exclusive titles, so what we could ask for reasonably from third-party publishers is to create either something [in] content or some features that are exclusive to our platform, and if our system had something very unique it's easier to ask for, but if it's not much different then it's harder to ask for.

Eurogamer: But it does seem like Microsoft really is asking, regardless of whether they're doing anything different. They're still going to Rockstar and Call of Duty and saying, help us out, give us 30 days of exclusivity or a year, and it seems perceptually - maybe not at a business level, I don't know - but perceptually as though it's given them an edge.

Shuhei Yoshida: So I don't know how the third-party relations guys are talking internally, but how I look at it is that I know these guys are really hard-working to visit developers and ask what it is they want us to do for them. I think we are a very much developer-focused company now compared to past efforts, and I hope it can have a lasting effect in developers, especially the independent and small developers. These people are less business-driven. They want to make games they want to make and sometimes they choose partners based on how they feel and the chemistry, so I think our guys are very focused to reach out and talk to these people.
Eurogamer: [At this point I'm hassled to wrap things up, so I asked for one more question.] Recently a lot of small or medium sized developers have moved away from home consoles to Steam or iOS or Android. What are you doing to bring them back? Is the self-publishing thing an example of that?

Shuhei Yoshida: Yes, that's a big part - a digital platform. There are many things we can do better to make it much more developer-friendly, instead of publishing on PlayStation Network, so it's more our focus - how we can make it easier for small developers to work with us to bring the content to PlayStation 4.

Eurogamer: Have you defined how the self-publishing process will work? Do you need a developer kit to develop for PS4 if it's based on PC architecture?

Shuhei Yoshida: So we are doing something like that with PlayStation Mobile and it's purely software development.

Eurogamer: So it will be possible to develop for PS4 even if you don't have a developer kit as well?

Shuhei Yoshida: Aaah, so we have to see... It depends on how we define the layer. The way we are approaching PS4 now is allowing developers to go really deep onto the metal, so Richard [Leadbetter of Digital Foundry] will know how that availability to the deeper hardware makes the console games way better than some PC or mobile approach. But if we do that, it will definitely require hardware to develop games.