PlayStation Now Launching With 'Hundreds of Titles'

[MentalIlness]

http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/05/14/playstation-now-launching-with-hundreds-of-titles

At today's invite-only PlayStation event, Sony talked about its upcoming streaming service called PlayStation Now, and it sounds like a whole lot of games are going to be available when it launches later this year.

Todd Liss of Sony told IGN that PlayStation Now will launch with "hundreds of titles." Now is currently in closed beta, and is still slated to launch this summer in North America.

Also at the PlayStation event, Sony was showing off two games running on Now for the very first time. Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception was shown being played on PlayStation 4, while Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus was shown being played on PlayStation Vita. The former game was hinted at earlier on the website of Gaikai, the streaming technology company Sony acquired a couple of years ago for $380 million.

Unfortunately, little else is known about PS Now, other than that renting games may cost $4.99-$5.99, and that both first party games -- like the aforementioned Uncharted 3 and Ratchet: Nexus -- and third party games will be available.

We went hands-on with PlayStation Now earlier this year, and were left impressed by the experience. We hope to have more on PS Now in between now and E3 in early June.

 

[xantub]

Can I play Vita games on the PS3 with this?

 

[gothamhunter]

Can I play Vita games on the PS3 with this?

Not on your PS3, but on your TV.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I won't rent games that can lag and don't look as good as the disk or download version for $6. No way.

The bad part of this to me would be that if they can get people to rent games and not own them, some games will be rental only and you would have to pay $6 continuously in order to finish the game. For a game that may take 30+ hours to complete and a limited rental time before it expires, it could end up costing a fortune to play that game. I hope that doesn't happen though.

 

[ImpulsE69]

I can tell you for MP games it is just not reliable. For single player less action oriented games it isn't too bad on my connection. I agree though, I can't see paying for something that may or may not work reliably at any given time.

 

[Lil Frier]

I'm surprised we're not hearing about the option to just buy the streamed games, and I'd expect them to have a $20/month, all-you-can-eat option as well, if they're really going to do $5-6/game.

 

[zerocool84]

I won't rent games that can lag and don't look as good as the disk or download version for $6. No way.

The bad part of this to me would be that if they can get people to rent games and not own them, some games will be rental only and you would have to pay $6 continuously in order to finish the game. For a game that may take 30+ hours to complete and a limited rental time before it expires, it could end up costing a fortune to play that game. I hope that doesn't happen though.

But convenience trumps all. Not having to buy a PS3 is great for this. If someone owns only a PS4, they get to catch up on a ton of great games they missed.

 

[cmdrdredd]

But convenience trumps all. Not having to buy a PS3 is great for this. If someone owns only a PS4, they get to catch up on a ton of great games they missed.

I would rather buy a used ps3 myself. I am not the target for this anyway. I abandoned my old consoles for a reason.

Besides, they may ask you to rent uncharted 3 for $4 but you can buy the game for $8

 

[MentalIlness]

I would rather buy a used ps3 myself. I am not the target for this anyway. I abandoned my old consoles for a reason.

Besides, they may ask you to rent uncharted 3 for $4 but you can buy the game for $8

I know this is true. Because I picked up Uncharted 1 + 2 + 3 for a total of $18.00 🙂

This renting thing wouldnt be for me anyway, living on top of a mountain in the Shenandoah..and have a 30GB cap per month in bandwidth from satellite. Sucks. And of course, 15GB of that usage, can only be used between 2am-8am.

 

[Kneedragger]

I'm interested in playing some of the PS3 games on the Vita if it works right. I'm also wondering if they are going to have a discounted price for PS+ customers..

 

[xantub]

I'm interested in playing some of the PS3 games on the Vita if it works right. I'm also wondering if they are going to have a discounted price for PS+ customers..

I'm the opposite, I have a PS3 (and PS4) but not interested in handhelds, so if this thing lets me play PSP/PS Vita exclusive games, I'm more than willing to give it a go, depending on pricing of course. I would prefer a monthly fee to have full access to the catalog, though they'll probably exclude recently released games or something. Devil is in the details.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I'm the opposite, I have a PS3 (and PS4) but not interested in handhelds, so if this thing lets me play PSP/PS Vita exclusive games, I'm more than willing to give it a go, depending on pricing of course. I would prefer a monthly fee to have full access to the catalog, though they'll probably exclude recently released games or something. Devil is in the details.

How will they map vita touchscreen controls I wonder.

 

[bearxor]

Aside from the streaming stuff, I really want to comment on "renting games".

This is coming. You're not going to "own" your games in the future. Content providers want control over their content. They want to know who has it, who's playing it and they want to make sure that they can get all the money they can out of a title.

I know Microsoft got bitch slapped hard for moving in that direction and that's fine for now. But by the time 2020 rolls around, no one should be surprised if thing like what Microsoft was planning are the norm.

And that's why streaming is the future. No better way to control your content than to simply not provide a copy of it. You'd essentially eliminate piracy, as there wouldn't ever even be a "copy" to crack.

 

[purbeast0]

Aside from the streaming stuff, I really want to comment on "renting games".

This is coming. You're not going to "own" your games in the future. Content providers want control over their content. They want to know who has it, who's playing it and they want to make sure that they can get all the money they can out of a title.

I know Microsoft got bitch slapped hard for moving in that direction and that's fine for now. But by the time 2020 rolls around, no one should be surprised if thing like what Microsoft was planning are the norm.

And that's why streaming is the future. No better way to control your content than to simply not provide a copy of it. You'd essentially eliminate piracy, as there wouldn't ever even be a "copy" to crack.

if that is the case, then many genres as we know it will be extinct.

 

[cmdrdredd]

if that is the case, then many genres as we know it will be extinct.

True hardcore RPG type games with hundreds of hours of content probably wont exist because renting over and over would be expensive and inconvenient and what MS was proposing was a model not all that dissimilar to steam where you download or install (off the disk) and register that game through their services. I think they needed to be more lenient with the online check period and extend it to say 7-14 days so that if for some reason you have no internetfor a few days you aren't locked out entirely. Steam has an offline mode that I have never used but from what I understand you do a check in and you can play your games offline. I am not sure I'd there is a time limit.

 

[ImpulsE69]

I would imagine that most of "us" (people in this forum) are not the demographic for this. When I was a kid a rented all the time because I had all the time in the world to play. These days I never know if I will actually get to play or not.

I haven't been on the system in a few weeks so I'm not sure if they changed anything, but they did have a 30 day option, but no idea how much it was going to be. If you could "rent" a game for say...$10 for 30 days, that might be a pretty good option. Not an option "I" would want, but may fit others just fine.

As for the service itself here are my thoughts.

I have an 8Mbit/8Mbit FIOS connection. (not sure where geographically I am connecting to them, but I am in the middle of the US). My PS3 connects wirelessly.

It is fast. Games load up and begin really fast. When it works, it works pretty well.

However downsides are:

if you have an unstable connection, you will be very pissed off over checkpoint save games if your router/internet dies.

I do not recommend using it if you are connecting your PS3 wirelessly as it can be pretty flaky in terms of quality. The games don't just lag, the screen becomes completely garbled and impossible to see. It is kind of like the old web cam days where the picture would degrade and get blocky over time.

Multiplayer FPS type games? Unless you are right next to their servers...forget it.

It works great for SRPG, rpg type games, but so so for action games (at least for me.)

Again, as far as connections go, mine is middle of the road, but it is stable. I think many of my issues may simply be the wireless connection. The problem I see overall is just the general wide variance of quality of service this will provide based solely on your connection and distance to their servers.

This is not any different than what OnLive did.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Thanks for that info. It is what I expected. If they offer a subscription where you can take your time with a game and try a variety that may work too.

 

[toughtrasher]

Anyone know the recommended internet capabilities you should have? Mine's pretty crappy but I'd like to see if I can try this

 

[smackababy]

True hardcore RPG type games with hundreds of hours of content probably wont exist because renting over and over would be expensive and inconvenient and what MS was proposing was a model not all that dissimilar to steam where you download or install (off the disk) and register that game through their services. I think they needed to be more lenient with the online check period and extend it to say 7-14 days so that if for some reason you have no internetfor a few days you aren't locked out entirely. Steam has an offline mode that I have never used but from what I understand you do a check in and you can play your games offline. I am not sure I'd there is a time limit.

Steam's offline mode requires you to be online to enable it. It authenticates and then saves your credentials. You then can restart in offline mode. If you have the "save credential" option enabled, I believe every time you log in, it reauthenticates it, so you can lose connection and be good.


The streaming sounds nice, but $4-6 per game is a deal breaker. I am not paying that.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Steam's offline mode requires you to be online to enable it. It authenticates and then saves your credentials. You then can restart in offline mode. If you have the "save credential" option enabled, I believe every time you log in, it reauthenticates it, so you can lose connection and be good.


The streaming sounds nice, but $4-6 per game is a deal breaker. I am not paying that.

That's what I thought, thanks for clarifying it. I have never used it as when my internet is out I have no power to begin with. Other than that since I've had Comcast I've never had an outage unrelated to a storm or the power company here in South FL. I've had issues with a slow connection, but it would still work enough to authenticate my games. It would just download slow for some reason. As much as I hate their business practices and the lack of choice I have for good ISPs here, they have been reliable.

 

[mmntech]

Aside from the streaming stuff, I really want to comment on "renting games".

This is coming. You're not going to "own" your games in the future. Content providers want control over their content. They want to know who has it, who's playing it and they want to make sure that they can get all the money they can out of a title.

I know Microsoft got bitch slapped hard for moving in that direction and that's fine for now. But by the time 2020 rolls around, no one should be surprised if thing like what Microsoft was planning are the norm.

And that's why streaming is the future. No better way to control your content than to simply not provide a copy of it. You'd essentially eliminate piracy, as there wouldn't ever even be a "copy" to crack.

Pretty much this. The music industry has already moved strongly in this direction. Why do you think Sony is pushing Music Unlimited so much on the PS4, opposed to local playback.

The unfortunate future is no net neutrality, where the internet is divided up like cable TV. You have to pay more to access premium content like game and video streaming, but you never own what you buy. But hey, at least it satisfies that instant gratification bug. It's BS like this that makes me just want to abandon modern technology and go live in a cabin in the woods.

 

[sze5003]

I don't know if I would pay to rent a game due to my limited time to play. It would depend if it was interesting enough.

It requires a 5mb connection at the least but who knows if this is good enough for multiplayer or heavy loading games. It seems lately ps3 has been getting some nice free games each month from psn plus. But my ps3 controller is busted and I mainly use my ps4 now.

 

[xantub]

It's funny that, before Netflix, I didn't care that I had to pay like $6 to rent a movie in Blockbuster (and let's not even talk about late fees!), and yet nowadays I have never bothered to rent a movie in Amazon Video or Sony store. I guess Netflix streaming spoiled me.

Again, to make this a success there should be a flat fee plan where you just pay monthly.

 

[toughtrasher]

It's funny that, before Netflix, I didn't care that I had to pay like $6 to rent a movie in Blockbuster (and let's not even talk about late fees!), and yet nowadays I have never bothered to rent a movie in Amazon Video or Sony store. I guess Netflix streaming spoiled me.

Again, to make this a success there should be a flat fee plan where you just pay monthly.

Huh, I used to do that too. I remember taking home 3 or 4 movies from BB a week! D:

 

[cmdrdredd]

Pretty much this. The music industry has already moved strongly in this direction. Why do you think Sony is pushing Music Unlimited so much on the PS4, opposed to local playback.

The unfortunate future is no net neutrality, where the internet is divided up like cable TV. You have to pay more to access premium content like game and video streaming, but you never own what you buy. But hey, at least it satisfies that instant gratification bug. It's BS like this that makes me just want to abandon modern technology and go live in a cabin in the woods.

Music doesn't eat gigabytes of bandwidth every month. I stream on my phone from Google play music daily for hours at a time and don't see my mobile data usage spike because of it. I am afraid the ISP situation in the US will force gaming to become irrelevant and die completely if they force streaming as the only option as game streaming is probably very bandwidth intensive.