PlayStation Now Has Little Merit As A Standalone Service – Wedbush Morgan

"Wedbush also talks about server-based gaming services were the big thing ten years ago with the likes of OnLive but failed to ultimately succeed with consumers."

[Mikelarry]

Pachter and company really do not like this playstation now service. i swear i have read more than three articles and 2 videos of him really going in on sony (whats new hey :)) and playstation now service.

[gameseveryday]

Well, his predictions are really on and off. Sometimes he is wrong and sometimes he is spot on. I just hope he is wrong this time since PlayStation Now is a unique initiative by Sony and this what the industry wants at the moment: 'unique innovation'

[Fishy Fingers]

Innovation? It's a service that been in the public sector for years. They bought a company already offering the business model and made it exclusive to their back catalog. OnLive/Gaikai were the innovators. Credit where it's due.

[gameseveryday]

@Fishy Fingers Sony owns Gaikai, that does not changes the fact that it's innovation.

[Fishy Fingers]

Whats innovative about buying another company? Gaikia and OnLive did the ground work and made the concept mainstream. They got it to work.

Signing cheques is not innovation. Sony bought an infrastructure that already existed and rebranded it.

[GribbleGrunger]

@Fishy Fingers: Microsoft bought the technology behind Kinect but that doesn't mean the technology behind Kinect isn't innovative. I don't understand the point you are trying to make.

[Bennibop]

Gaikai took the service as far as it could go, the Sony buy out has allowed them to continue the innovations and develop the system further.

[Fishy Fingers]

Gribble. No it doesn't, but it means the founders of the technology where the innovators, not MS. Like I said, credit where it's due.

Online Streaming in its infancy was largely hated on, including here at N4G. It was under supported, undervalued and labelled a pointless endeavour, now it has Sony slapped on the name it's "uniquely innovative"? No.

[morganfell]

Rashid, Pachter is only correct on occasion because even a broken clock is right twice a day. He is like every market analyst on any stock or venture. Except less so like every clown in his field from Jim Cramer to the Motley Fool.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a...

Many market analysts actually know the industry on which they advise intimately. But Pachter obviously is not a gamer himself and his ill informed remarks have made this patently clear.

Let me say this so there is no doubt: I will attack Pachter in a pro or anti-Sony article and I will do the same in a pro or anti-Microsoft write up. I think he is unhealthy for the industry and our hobby and does as much if not more damage than these idiots in the gaming press.

EDIT: Fishy, Gaikai was founded by Dave Perry from Shiny Entertainment. They partnered with Nvidia. Does that mean Gaikai still did their own work? No Nvidia helped them take it further. It is the same with Sony. Sony will use their tech and innovation to take it further. It is the old axiom at work - "They are greater together than the sum of their parts"

Gaikai isn't just for delivering live play games. It is a media streaming service and it's benefit wil be broadranging for Sony from games to music to movies to the web.

[Fishy Fingers]

Oh dear, opened a can of worms here. My point, which I thought was pretty clear, is buying an existing infrastructure and rebranding it is not innovation. At best, it's evolution of an established formula.

I simply tried to suggest that occasionally it would be refreshing to see credit given where due. The people praising PS Now are the same people that dismissed OnLive/Giakia. Much like Wii-mote and PS Move.

When analysts brought OnLive or Giakias sustainability and use into question, no one cared. What changed? The brand name.

[morganfell]

I understand what you are saying in your latest comment but many of us never dismissed Gaikai because their approach, even BEFORE SONY PURCHASED THEM was wholly different than OnLive.

Often technology is at a standstill and would have never succeeded were a company and its IP not purchased and given that slightly different approach that means the difference between success and failure.

[BabyTownFrolics]

Fishy fingers be careful your kicking a hornets nest

[nukeitall]

@GribbleGrunger:

Completely different story. MS bought a subset of technology behind Kinect, and then drew in technology and research from other fields to create a platform enabling Kinect. Something the original company never (likely) could have done.

What the other companies had was very much a prototype stage technology, not to mention other competing console manufacturers did not see the value in the technology and dismissed it!

However, PS Now is an existing service that has been around commercially for at least half a decade that failed. Sony bought it and their progress would simply be to extend it to work with their content.

I'm sorry, but OnLive/Gakai was the innovator of technology (not a successful business), Sony not so much. If Sony succeed, their innovation would have been to make this viable which is no small feat, but certainly at this stage not in technology, or business model OR ANYTHING really. Give credit where it is due.

@BabyTownFrolics:

Yup, we are! The usual big queen hornets are already in here attacking! :D

[Jdoki]

I'm guessing they said the same about Netflix etc...

I can't see how PSNow could fail. The Gakai infrastructure is already there and is being used for other stuff - so it's not like Sony have bet the farm on it.

What this really comes down to is whether EA, Ubi, Activision etc see this as a way of making money from their new titles.

I could potentially see PSNow (at least in the early stages) being full of 3rd party publisher back catalogue stuff, and new 1st / 2nd party published stuff.

But where PSNow will really shine is in giving people the ability to play older games. If Sony markets PSNow as 'If you own a PS4 you're getting a PS3, 2, 1, PSP and Vita for a low monthly price', I think it'll make good money for them.

[Baccra17]

They say if you get 10% to think like you do, you can get the majority to go along with it. He keeps saying this because he is trying to throw around his influence and make PS Now fail.

I'll even go a step further, he probably has ties with the American guy who wants Sony to split up and be sold off. Insider trading and shenanigans is going on. Pachter needs to be investigated.

[MegaRay]

As long as Sony consider ps2 emulator on PS4 without psnow im fine...
I will hate to force to pay to play hd ps2 games (since my internet sux)

[darx]

It's the next PS Home

[OrangePowerz]

Ten years ago? Onlive and Gaikai launched in 2010 and 2011. Pachter isn't very good with counting.

[Volkama]

With all his time travelling into the future and back he sometimes forgets what year he is in.

I assume he can time travel and report on "possible futures" anyway. Not sure why else he'd get paid for what he does.

[Tidybrutes]

I think what a lot of people are forgeting is that PS now will lower the barrier of entry into the playstation ecosystem or to play playstation games, people who want to game from time to time now can through smart TVs and tablets.

Which may sound strange to gamers like us but there are people who dont own a console and may like the idea of just needing to have a controller, internet connection and ps now to play games on their smart tv.

[Volkama]

The Bravia streaming and such is certainly an interesting prospect.

But I doubt many people that aren't interested in owning a console will be enticed into any games subscription. We'll have to see if Sony are able to get suitable partnerships in place with TV service providers or similar entities that can package it in for this side to flourish.

That's if Sony are still making TVs by the time they're ready to roll this service out :)

[Mikelarry]

if i could give you a 100 agrees i would, you hit the nail on the head with your comment. bubbles

[Picnic]

I am starting to suspect that Wedbush Morgan, founded 1955, is lost in some Hudsucker Proxy-like world.

It seems fundamentally childish if not psychotic to make pronouncements on how it claims that the way that the wind will blow - all in the hope of creating that weather itself through support to 'prove' them 'right'.

It's built on anti-belief in something that it didn't even create. How can a company do that and claim to be independent, claim not to be anti-competitive?

A company based on the 'you suck' ideology of internet bloggers? That's mental.

It just goes to show that if long standing companies don't defend themselves, they will have people poking their tongue out at them. And that goes for Wedbush Morgan too of course who don't seem to be aware of or at least care about the hate that they generate with their cynical pronouncements.

[djplonker]

Its funny how it is always an american saying ps now will fail its like they have biast toward the company from the us and are against any of its competitors.

Atleast thats what I am starting to think or maybe they have stock in microsoft XD