With PlayStation Now, Sony proves that game streaming works

When Sony launched its PlayStation Now service as a beta last year, the ridiculous per-game rental pricing structure stopped many people from giving it any serious consideration almost immediately. Last week, though, the service graduated from beta with a more feasible all-you-can-play subscription plan. Suddenly this was an opportunity. Has the idea of running games on remote servers advanced at all since OnLive's ahead-of-its-time launch back in 2010?

[darx]

I guess.

[SilentNegotiator]

It's fine, but I would never want to rely on streaming for my main source of games.

[bmf7364]

Give it time. Netflix wasn't an instant hit

[SilentNegotiator]

I don't rely on Netflix for my main source of movies/TV, either, so...

[XisThatKid]

A friend and me had a blast playin Dead Island Riptide for that free week. I'm def going to subscribe sometime soon.

[Kurisu]

Give me a shout when it's available to try out in the UK.

[GribbleGrunger]

I'm looking forward to trying it myself although I can't see myself using it permanently.

[MasterCornholio]

Same here. I would love to see if it works but im not really interested in paying a subscription fee to play a limited library of games. Once they build it up enough I might consider it.

[Kurisu]

Yeah, same here. Hopefully we get a free trial.

[GribbleGrunger]

This service is about broadening the hardware capable of delivering PS branded games and I have both a PS4 and a PS3. Anyone with only a PS4 or a Vita will likely stick with it but I think that market will eventually buried by a much bigger market of PCs, laptops, phones, TVs and Blu-ray players.

[EvilWay]

For people with the required Internet and capabilities. I have a few friends who never owned a PS3 and would love this service but they have data caps and can not use this service at all. It is a good service now that I have used it myself but it is not available for everyone which is the problem

[ApolloTheBoss]

Depends on your connection.

[freshslicepizza]

true, which is explained in the article. they suggest 9 mbps download speeds or higher to get the best experience.

this is the future of gaming.

[pkb79]

My internet is far lower, a draw back from living in the middle of no where, but it streamed games just fine
I would still prefer true backward compatible but then how would game publishers milk money out of hd remakes.

[SegaGamer]

Well that is me screwed then. The max i can get in my area is 7.6mbps.

[Summons75]

Provided you have income enough to pay for the ridiculously high subscription, the money to afford internet providers ridiculously high internet rates (Looking at you Time Warner), and the ability to accept that you will have to play laggy games and will never be able to own them as apposed to going to gamestop and picking up the majority of the games for 2/3 bucks in the used bins. Then clearly it works.....

[Drithe]

I agree. This service sucks. Not owning games sucks. This service is dead in the water.

[IGiveHugs2NakedWomen]

Why is it dead in the water? Playstation Now will co-exist with gaming consoles it's not going to replace consoles until every gamer can afford high bandwidth/high speed internet.

[BoNeSaW23]

Somebody call Sony and tell them to pull the plug on their $380 million dollar investment. Drithe has declared NOW "dead in the water" because he can't afford "ridiculously high internet rates".

[360ICE]

I can't comment on PS Now, but I think we can all unite in our mutual hatred for cable companies.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/n...

[uth11]

I predict net neutrality will make things worse.

[360ICE]

@uth11
We've had net neutrality since the dawn of the Internet, and so has every other country. Only difference is that it's being taken away to give cable companies even more power.

[eferreira]

Ummm no, I tried like 10 different games on a wireless connection and detected no lag. Also gamestop/eb games does not sell the majority of games for like 2/3 dollars. Maybe if you've gone there more than once a year you'd see.

If everyone thought like you we wouldn't have great services like netflix, hulu plus and many of those music streaming services.

Price is much for what you get. 15 a month isn't expensive. You probably pay that alone for your Mc Donalds. There are plenty of other internet service providers that offer cheaper rates like tech savy and have great speeds.

[DragoonsScaleLegends]

It works and I was able to play Uncharted all the way to the end but the latency on some games make them unplayable. But people with low latency internet connections probably have the best experience but I definitely don't have a great connection. The price well is high but not necessarily over priced since just getting the 3 month plan should give you plenty of time to play almost all of these games which is a good deal.

[StarLord_Who]

For a price

[RG_Dubz]

No, they proved it causes too much screen tearing due to most games on PS3 being Native 720p and the game being upscaled to 1080p when using PS Now.

Maybe if they change PS Now to keep the same Native Resolution the game was made in then it will be a lot better but even on the best internet connection the streams still have some noticeable artifacts on the background while playing.. It's minor but it's still there.

[Roccetarius]

Well, we always knew game rentals worked, but not so much the latency that'll always be there, regardless of your internet connection. It's much better to just play the game locally.

[DEEBO]

Great service and 15 dollars a month is not alot of money to some people.

I got the three month plan and feels like i got my money's worth.

But you have to have good network connection.i have 16.4 DL and 1.1 up with no data caps.and i can't run too many things at one time because it kills the bandwidth.

[EazyC]

Suppose it's alright, given that they couldn't be arsed giving us backwards compatibility. I hope they put Bad Company 2 on it.

[vongruetz]

I didn't understand the service fully until just recently. I have a PS3 and already own most of those games. Why would I want something like this.
Then I used it and the light bulb went off.

I started a game in my living room on my PS4 and played through the first two levels. Then I picked up the game on my Vita while waiting at the library. Then I continued the game in my office on my PSTV. I could play the same game on any console I have, wherever I happen to be. It's like what cross-save promises but better.