Ever since the PlayStation Now beta launched at the end of
July, I’ve been pondering the value proposition of Sony’s streaming offerings.
During this soft launch, the selection of titles is extremely limited, and the
pricing model doesn’t quite fit. However, the streaming technology itself is
surprisingly solid, so it definitely can’t be dismissed outright. I’ll be the
first to admit that there is plenty of room for improvement, but let me explain
why PS Now is actually better than I expected it to be.
To get started with PS Now, all you need is a PS4 and a North American PSN account. Simply launch the PlayStation Store, and scroll down to the “PS Now” menu item. From there, you can select from roughly 100 PS3 titles that are currently offered. Unfortunately, you’re going to need to whip out your credit card at this point. The prices vary between the title and rental length, but everything is too high right now. At launch, the cheapest price was $3 for four hours, but a handful of games are now down to $2 for the same four hour chunk.
For testing purposes, I ended up paying $8 for 30 days of access to Saints Row 2. With a service like Redbox, you can rent a game for roughly $2 per day. On Amazon, I can buy a physical copy of Saints Row 2 for under ten bucks. If the four hour chunk model is going to stay, it needs to dive below a dollar — preferably fifty cents a pop. If Sony wants to keep the entry-level purchase in the $2 to $5 range, the minimum number of rental hours needs to increase by at least sixfold. For the relatively ancient games available on that service right now, there’s no excuse for charging so much money. If Sony ever starts rolling out recent AAA titles on PS Now, then maybe we can talk about this premium pricing.
It’s certainly not all bad, though. The rental processes is as easy as buying any title off of PSN, and PS Now titles are featured on the main menu just like any native PS4 game. Provided that you have a substantial pipeline with relatively low latency to Sony’s servers, the experience is pretty much seamless. Load times don’t seem any worse than local copies of PS3 games, and the streaming experience has been rock solid the entire time. I haven’t seen any noticeable dips in performance, and latency hasn’t been an issue at all. Sure, the input lag isn’t going to match a local game, but everything that I’ve seen is playable. Even driving and fighting games have worked well for me, so I can’t complain.
After just a few minutes of playing a game over PS Now, I completely forget about all of the crazy streaming tech powering the experience. Frankly, that’s the highest praise I can give it. Provided that Sony can implement this same quality of service all over the world, it seems as if the core Gaikai technology powering PS Now is a real winner.
More than anything, I’m excited to see what Sony does next with PS Now. There has been plenty of talk surrounding PS1 and PS2 support, and it seems inevitable that we’ll see PS4 games grace the service before long. PS3, Vita, PS TV, and Sony smart TV support is definitely in the cards, and Sony already let slip that some sort of subscription-based pricing model is currently under development.
It’s now clear that game streaming has a lot of potential, and Sony has a commanding lead here. Microsoft has yet to publicly discuss a streaming or backwards compatibility strategy, OnLive is just now digging itself out of the hole it fell in a few years back, and Valve’s attempt to move into the living room is stalling. With a few tweaks here and there before PS Now leaves beta status, Sony might just have something special with PlayStation Now.
To get started with PS Now, all you need is a PS4 and a North American PSN account. Simply launch the PlayStation Store, and scroll down to the “PS Now” menu item. From there, you can select from roughly 100 PS3 titles that are currently offered. Unfortunately, you’re going to need to whip out your credit card at this point. The prices vary between the title and rental length, but everything is too high right now. At launch, the cheapest price was $3 for four hours, but a handful of games are now down to $2 for the same four hour chunk.
For testing purposes, I ended up paying $8 for 30 days of access to Saints Row 2. With a service like Redbox, you can rent a game for roughly $2 per day. On Amazon, I can buy a physical copy of Saints Row 2 for under ten bucks. If the four hour chunk model is going to stay, it needs to dive below a dollar — preferably fifty cents a pop. If Sony wants to keep the entry-level purchase in the $2 to $5 range, the minimum number of rental hours needs to increase by at least sixfold. For the relatively ancient games available on that service right now, there’s no excuse for charging so much money. If Sony ever starts rolling out recent AAA titles on PS Now, then maybe we can talk about this premium pricing.
It’s certainly not all bad, though. The rental processes is as easy as buying any title off of PSN, and PS Now titles are featured on the main menu just like any native PS4 game. Provided that you have a substantial pipeline with relatively low latency to Sony’s servers, the experience is pretty much seamless. Load times don’t seem any worse than local copies of PS3 games, and the streaming experience has been rock solid the entire time. I haven’t seen any noticeable dips in performance, and latency hasn’t been an issue at all. Sure, the input lag isn’t going to match a local game, but everything that I’ve seen is playable. Even driving and fighting games have worked well for me, so I can’t complain.
After just a few minutes of playing a game over PS Now, I completely forget about all of the crazy streaming tech powering the experience. Frankly, that’s the highest praise I can give it. Provided that Sony can implement this same quality of service all over the world, it seems as if the core Gaikai technology powering PS Now is a real winner.
More than anything, I’m excited to see what Sony does next with PS Now. There has been plenty of talk surrounding PS1 and PS2 support, and it seems inevitable that we’ll see PS4 games grace the service before long. PS3, Vita, PS TV, and Sony smart TV support is definitely in the cards, and Sony already let slip that some sort of subscription-based pricing model is currently under development.
It’s now clear that game streaming has a lot of potential, and Sony has a commanding lead here. Microsoft has yet to publicly discuss a streaming or backwards compatibility strategy, OnLive is just now digging itself out of the hole it fell in a few years back, and Valve’s attempt to move into the living room is stalling. With a few tweaks here and there before PS Now leaves beta status, Sony might just have something special with PlayStation Now.
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