OnlySP: After much conjecture the commercial service based on Gaikai streaming technology has been revealed as Playstation Now.
The service will act like Netflix for video games. You pay a fee and then have access to a library of PS3 games that you play on Playstation 4 through the internet. But Sony’s vision goes further. They would also like Playstation Now to branch out and eventually allow tablets, phones, and TVs to play Playstation games as well. In addition to PS3 games there seems to be plans to bring both PS1 and PS2 games to the service.
PlayStation dominated cloud gaming users throughout 2021, beating Microsoft's xCloud streaming by over 10%, but Xbox swings back at PlayStation in 2022.
“In 2022, Microsoft took the lead with 60-70% of total MAUs”
From 20-30% up to 60-70%? That’s some crazy growth. Probably thanks to Fortnite.
What a clickbait headline. Why mention 2021, when the tides turned in 2022 for the obvious reason of one company making the Cloud service one of their biggest marketing pushes throughout the entire year while the other company was able to promote the games they had coming out?
And it's imprudent to suggest crazy growth when we only know proportions - did Xbox grow its proportion by attracting from the competitors' bases, did their marketing pay off and attract new users, or did cloud gamers on competitors just not play as much? The MAU figures don't point to shifts as significant as the Cloud proportions do, and Microsoft's lack of raw subscriber numbers that they happily boasted about in 2021 is telling too.
The PlayStation Brahs:
"Playstation Now will soon cease as exist as it combines with PlayStation Plus to be one super subscription, titles that won't carryover to the PlayStation Plus revamp will begin to leave the service in May."
Wait, what? I thought PS+ premium would carry over the games from PSNow?
Also this basically leaves MGS4 dead in the boneyard unless you play via RPCS3…
It's actually a lot of games that will leave at the same time.
Probably to leave some space for the PSP games that are gonna be added to the premium service.
As for MGS4, I would expect Konami to be behind the move.
Ah, yes. Bask in the "service" era. Where what you see today, is not what you'll see tomorrow, thanks to an overcomplicated system.
The "service", is simply, off the charts.
So when games leave PS Now, it's a huge issue but when games leave GamePass it's just fine? All subscription services have games / movies leave all the time.
Get PS Plus Premium at half off the price by subscribing to PS Now for 12 months! Sony has pulled the annual offer on PSN, but here are live links offering it for US and UK.
Umm ever consider it will probably just give you the basic ps plus for one year and you will need to upgrade to get the premium one?
They could give it to us for a dollar to get those numbers up before it launches.
Just kidding.
Don't let the link open in the app, it doesn't work. Open it in a web browser and it will work
The link in the article goes to a page that says "Not available for purchase." When I click on the link from the Twitter post, it works though. https://twitter.com/Wario64...
I gather the argument here is that it's an outrage for playstation now not to have classic games that were/are sold on the ps store in its library?
I think it's gonna be like netflix where they have an extensive library that rotates in and out over a particular time frame. I don't think they are going to go out of their way to pick and choose what titles show up on the service to maximize their profits in digital sales.
You also have to consider licensing agreements. I'm sure developers will require a share of the profits from whatever content they own, square Enix could ask for way to much money for their IP's meaning Sony and square can't come to an agreement that allows ff7 to be played via ps now.
It might be easy to try and paint Sony as the bad guys with such restrictions to the library but they are likely many unknown factors that may hold it back. Conspiracy theories are not healthy.
I have to say that I wholeheartedly agree with David Nelson on this issue. As I've said before, I am anti-digital in regards to it replacing physical non-internet reliant gaming.
This is just another step in that direction. You can clearly see it's been planned for & is steadily, almost subtly coming to fruition & you don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to see it's already being primed. This PSNOW is only the beginning of the transformation of gaming into a so called "service".
I understand the reasoning. It's going to make tons of money. It seems the whole industry can't wait to go digital only. Let me be clear, when I say digital it's short for internet reliant gaming &/or games that go poof & vanish in the future. Where the freedom to play a game (you bought) only requires the hardware (that you also purchased) to play it on for as long as you keep the hardware & the game is stripped away leaving only Vapor Games. A glorified rental if you will. That's what I call "Digital" & in this context it is negative. There are benefits of going digital only but the cost & sacrifice that will be made is no even remotely close to being worth it in the end.
Whether it's streaming, downloaded or whatever the next piece of the digital pie may be, you can be certain that it will be a dreadful & dear loss to gamers even if they don't realize it right now.
Hirai: PS4 not download-only
Ben Parfitt by Ben Parfitt
Thursday, August 26th 2010 at 10:00AM BST
Hirai: PS4 not download-only
SCE CEO Kaz Hirai has ruled out future digital-only PlayStation consoles – despite being the first platform holder to launch one with PSPgo.
“We do business in parts of the world where network infrastructure isn’t as robust as one would hope,” he said.
“There’s always going to be requirement for a business of our size and scope to have a physical medium.
“To think everything will be downloaded in two years, three years or even ten years from now is taking it a little bit to the extreme.”
Doom & Gloom so early? PS now isn't even out yet.
BUT
For me its about convenience and infinite access to play a huge library of games without having to carry their physical weight and space anywhere.
Playing a Ps3 game on a wi-fi enabled tour bus using your PS Vita is nothing short of phenomenal for a hardcore gamer.