Playstation Now, Cloud Streaming Detailed At CES 2014 – Beta Incoming
So just after I blog about a patent put through about Gaikai, Sony announce Playstation Now, a streaming service that will be used on PS Vita and PS4, and also Tablets and also, believe it or not, Bravia TV’s to play ps3, ps2 and most likely ps1 games.
The first we heard of the streaming service coming to PlayStation was in February, when they announced that they will be using Gaikai’s streaming tech to bring it to PS4. Later in the year we found out it will also be coming to Vita, and at their CES keynote they announced the service ‘Playstation Now’ details are still a bit fuzzy on pricing, but it seems that there will be a subscription based option and also the option to purchase the game outright. I didn’t catch the keynote, but the US Playstation blog put up a post about PS Now and here’s what the article says about pricing:
We want to offer you choice when it comes to how you want to access content on PS Now, so you will be able to rent by title for specific games you are interested in. We’ll also offer a subscription that will enable you to explore a range of titles.
So you’ll have the option to rent by title, so probably around $4 for 72 hours, or a subscription that will let us ‘explore a range of titles’ ? Does this mean renting and we have to buy them later, or we pay a monthly fee and we have full access to every game on there?
It will initially become available in US (mainland). We will announce the service’s availability in other areas when we are ready to expand the service to those customers. More info soon!
Good news! Your save files with PS Now games move with you from any PSN now enabled and supported device. With games hosted in the cloud, you can truly take your game with you – just log in with you SEN account and your games and progress will be instantly available.
Awesome.
Another question was posted in the comments and it regards the internet connection speeds, the commenter also says
‘It would be wise to offer everyone a 30 day trial to see if their internet speeds are good enough’
Yeah, that’ll happen. Maybe a of free 24 hour rentals, but nothing more, if they do anything at all
Matt’s reply about internet speed was:
We recommend a 5MBPS+ connection. In our internal tests, users with this bandwidth or greater have been enjoying a low latency, high-quality gaming experience. PS Now tests your connection of each game and optimizes for quality if you are above the minimum requirements. We strive to make the gameplay experience feel as if the game is being played locally on their device – fast and responsive (including for FPS and games with twitch mechanics). The Closed Beta will definitely provide a great opportunity to test the experience with gamers with varying connection speeds and our developers will, of course, be working diligently to optimize the service based upon the feedback we receive from the community.
5MBPS+ doesn’t really seem like that much to ask for, which seems pretty good, and if you watch the videos at the bottom of the blog where someone has filmed the stream of The Last Of Us on a Bravia TV, it looks like there’s pretty much no latency atall (although they’re probably using non-commercial 500MBPS internet speeds).
Another question was about if the connection drops, and isn’t as strong what will happen, will it go super laggy or have they thought of a work around?
This was the reply:
PS Now is a streaming service, but you of course will continue to be able to download titles to PlayStation devices from the PlayStation Store. If your connection drops while using PS Now, we may temporarily and adaptively reduce your resolution to maintain a responsive experience.
Good thinking, it’d be bloody annoying suddenly having it freeze on you and then find your dead from a clicker bite.
I don’t mean to be rude, but I find it incredibly selfish for those who believe this service should be included in the PS Plus membership, if you’re paying less than $5 a month, even if you just have a PS4, you get Don’t Starve free this month which to buy on PS4 is $15. So you’ve got a $10 discount, along with all of the other extras like online save backups, online gameplay, I got an idea! Let’s see how much (for the US) you’ve saved if you own a PS3, Vita and PS4.
The games you get are:
PS4;
Don’t Stave
PS3;
Bioshock: Infinite
DmC
Brothers: A Tale Of Two Sons
PS Vita;
Smart As
Worms: Battle Islands
To buy all of these games separately, you would’ve paid (prices obtained from amazon.com/PS Store for digital)
Well even I was shocked at this, a grand total of $115.
And you paid $5-6 🙂
And for UK, we got £78 worth of games for about £3.33 (If you payed yearly)
Anyway, my moan is over so here’s the videos at CES 2014 of Playstation Now in action, with The Last Of Us being played on the PS Vita:
(You might want to turn it down a bit)
And here’s the announcement of PS Now:
Thirst! Wait what?
I don’t mean to be rude either, but i don’t think comparing price of the psn+ with price of buying games out of amazon/online store really can compare :
– When you buy a game out of amazon, it usually comes on a physical media, meaning you don’t use 1-3Gb on your memory stick/8-50Gb on your hardrive depending on the console. The price of the memory cards/changing disk to get the needed space to install new games is to be taken into account
– You don’t “own” the games you get thru psn+, you merely RENT them, if you stop paying for psn+ you can’t play them anymore, now if due to low space on your memory stick you don’t get more then 2-3 games from psn+, and multiply those 5$ a month by let’s say 3 months (time to finish a game playing an avg 1hr a day), you then paid 15$ (same price as a physical copy on amazon), for a game you don’t own/can’t re-sale.
Don’t take me wrong, i think psn+ is a great thing and i don’t think it’s way overpriced or anything, but i equally don’t think it’s too far fetched to believe they could add more services to it without changing the price …
you say this like you have a limited time to play a game, and you can only have a limited number of games on ps+, witch isnt true, aslong as you keep ps+ active youve got the game, and if you let it laps for a few week/months you can git the games back by reactivating your ps+ service
how often do you replay a game?
new games come out constantly, i have about 20 ps+games i want to play but theyre on my back log till i get to them
sonys not making you sell your old consoles for a new one, so you can still play your old games when ever you like
im not in to gaming to sell my old games back off, if i like them they go in the game cabinet, if theyre ***…well i spent to much and it goes in the old games box with the old system
you expect alot of free in gaming but sadly its not financially possible anymore as games evolve to better graphics and higher hardware requirements
As jd20dog said, the main problem is, that people see PS Plus as service, that’s somehow limited in time. But that’s not true. I don’t know, where that comes from.
I for example thought, that the games are limited to one year, because they get the date, when your PS Plus expires as an expiration date.
In other words, when you purchase a game from the instant game collection, it is marked as a Plus-only game. But it will forever be owned by your account, you use for PSP, PS3, PSVita and PS4.
On start of a Plus-marked game, the console checks if the game is expired. If not, it starts (online or offline, with or without plus). If it is expired, the console checks if your account is currently a Plus-account, if not, it won’t start, if it is, the games expiration date will be set to the expiration date of your plus account.
That’s why my plus games had an expiration date after one year and I thought, they are time-limited. But that is not the case. They are forever bound to my account. Just like a steam library. I see no reason to ever quit my Plus account, anymore, as I keep on playing and there are at least one or two games, I want to play every month. So, the only possibility to loose all those games, is if Sony servers are, for some reason, offline when my games expire. That may be the case, if Sony shuts down the playstation servers. But in my opinion, the possibility for that to ever happen is even lower than the possibility, that valve shuts down the steam servers. And alot of people even pay more than 50€/$ a year on steam. And, as steam is a real DRM, you isntantly can’t play the games in your steam library. Not even the games, you purchased from retail, as they still require steam. The PS Plus games can be played as long as the expiration date reaches. If you, for example buy plus for 500€/$ (10 years), your Plus games, get 2024 as expiration date and you never have to connect to the internet again.
You guys just sound like sony reps trying to defend the concept of psn+ … If you read my post you’ll see i’m not saying psn+ is a bad thing or a ripoff. All i say is that comparing “free” psn+ game to a game you buy doesn’t really stand the comparison, as getting “free” games out of psn+ is just not the same as buying a game (and yes, it does becomes the same when you buy a game using a reduction offered by psn+, but other stores do special offers too, and psn isn’t always the cheaper option to buy a given game, even with psn+) …
Now back to my original point, what i say is that psn+ being sold as a “Set of services” and not just “a free access to games every month”, it’s not completely unrealistic to think they could have the game streaming a part of that service.
Please read full posts before getting mad at people who you just feel are “badmouthing your all beloved psn+ service” as that just makes you sound like a sony rep or even worse, a blinded fanboy
Let’s add another ‘PLUS’ to something you didn’t consider. These games you get through PLUS range in pricing, but let’s make it even clearer. Bioshock Infinite. Just on a quick search, it ranges in price, not sale, used or new from $30-$40. Okay. So, say I never played the game, and don’t own it. And I decide to get 1 year of PLUS right there. Okay…So…It expires one year later, and I decide I don’t want to renew, but I really like Infinite, and want to play it again. You check the price now, and it is down by $20 to $20, or even more considering the PS4 will have been out for a while by then.
You got the ability to play this game, and countless others for a whole year, for just $50, while to own used or not, it would have racked up a premium. As time goes on, the value, based on price alone, of older games drops. While multiplayer options may be removed over time, the game is just as it was when you bought it. So. $50 (includes 1 year of Bioshock and countless other games) + $10-$20 for Bioshock vs $40 for Bioshock. That means, that $10-$20 for every game too, that drops in price over that period, minus digital only games that rarely get this treatment.
You didn’t really save $40, but you saved $20 for Bioshock: Infinite. So, calculate that into each game over that period that you have plus, and you’ll see how much money you save if you had waited vs. buying it new straight out. Now, that also means you wouldn’t have the game during that 1 year time obviously if you waited.
There is a lot of money to be saved through PLUS. It is crazy how much, and as long as you keep the subscription, it keeps saving. Cause it just racks on more and more titles, and I currently have every single one, and that doesn’t include the sales PLUS allows me, with purchases I have made. While I have been annoyed from time to time about already buying and owning Bioshock, and other titles that I would have gotten for free later on, I can’t complain about the benefits it give me.
I would love someone to finely calculate the average money you save over time, purchasing titles at their current price a free game is offered, not owning any of the said titles, vs getting it for free, and then allowing a 1 yrs time per that date, and then having to buy said titles at their later value. And see the savings after 2 years, 3 years etc. I’m sure you would be amazed at how much money is saved from waiting. Obviously, you wouldn’t have bought every game they gave for free, only those you were previously interested in, but that varies from person to person. There is someone for every game, so this would settle differently in a real-life scenario, but at least you could see the theoretical actual savings over time.
It seems as if everyone else has completely missed the point.. personally i think that playstation now benefits SHOULD be included in the ps+ to some extent. Even if it is just a discount. I wont lie, ps+ has saved me a ton of money and im going to keep using it either way, but i dont want to have to sign up for several different memberships just so i can have a bunch of features that should be bundled into one subscription in the firstplace. heck, if they increased the price of plus and added ps now as a benefit that would be fine.
But i cant believe how hard you guys are trying to defend such a self rightcheous point of view. Not everybody has the money to just go out and get new games every few months.
I was going to put a wall of text, but let’s not.
PsPlus has been worth it from its beginnings pre vita/ps4. Post vita/ps4, it’s three times as valuable, but costs the same amount.
A flawless cloud gaming service would be worth easily 400 dollars a year to me. 400 a year would even be a feasible price-point for me to pay, and I’m low income.
Do I object to a company attempting to make money, to line their pockets, and those of their employees? Not if they give me what it is stated or implied to me I am paying for.
My question is if this is what their answer for the backwards compatibility for the ps4 meant.
If it is, then I definitely won’t be subscribing at all.
I will not pay to rent a game I already own. And expecting anyone to do it would be greedy of sony in my opinion. It really feels like double dipping to me.
I most likely won’t be subscribing anyway. I don’t rent games.
If I can’t buy and play it whenever I want without having to subscribe, it is a useless money grabbing scheme, and I will have nothing to do with it.
Lets make this simple.
When you have a psn+ account you get perks of which the highlights are special discounted pricing on things you can purchase (which remains yours even if you are no longer psn+) as well as no cost access to a library of games they choose and of which they keep adding to regularly.
People may interpret that your own free games but really it is free access while you have your psn+ subscription, and to interpret that as renting them is wrong btw.
Its no different than the fancy cable tv packages you might subscribe to, you stop paying for the fancy package and you don’t get that access anymore, period and easy to understand.
Everyone also has the same access the psn+ free library, you just set set your own limits by what YOU own for storage. You only own a 4 gig mem card, that sucks but you still had the same access as if you had a 32gb card or a 500gb ps3, or 2 of them. Simple.
As to the interpretation of the streaming service being like double dipping by Sony, if you bought your legacy games (PS1,PS2,PS3, etc) on psn then MAYBE eventually we will be able to access them on the PS4. If you bought physical media then it still works for the PS1, PS2 or PS3 you bought it for doesn’t it.
Sony has gone out of their way already in trying to bring legacy to the PS4, we should be happy with what we get as they don’t have any actual responsibility to do it. Sure it will make them money, but for the amount of effort and cost it takes as well as for the limitless demands, expectations and complaints of people I hope it makes them a ton on it.
All of us need to stop having our opinions, demands and desires steered by the rantings of the media and gaming sites, as they seem to create a negative for every positive item and word they report on.
Love the stupid comment on there answer to backward compatibility.
If they do consider it as an answer then I personally consider it a damn good one because emulating a ps3 on a ps4 would just not work and would be a waste of consoles capabilities in my opinion.
If you want backwards capability on your ps4 and you don’t like the idea of a netflix like game streaming service then Sellotape your ps3 on your ps4….
They could do it, they just don’t want it to be done.
Sony has all access to at least their own hardware and software products, meaning they can easily create an emulator (syscall wrapper).
For their own software they wouldn’t even need an emulator, as they can just run the source code through a porting station / debugging station ét voila you have a genuine port of a psX(insert number here) title for the ps4.
As for sony foreign titles, they would need to make an emulator or they get the permission from the creator / publisher to reverse engineer (probably already have those rights as they stated in this patent stuff for the minigames inside a legacy title) and recompile psX(insert number…) title for ps4.
Oh no, they could do it all, they just don’t want to.
Their strategy is to completely hook customers to their online services and therefor something like an emulator and downloading stuff to your console is a thorn in their side and not profitable.
YOU SHOULD NOT OWN.
YOU SHOULD NOT DOWNLOAD.
YOU SHOULD NOT RECORD (Movies, gameplay,…).
YOU SHOULD RENT.
YOU SHOULD PAY MONTHLY SERVICE FEES.
Their*
I was thinking of a ps3 ps4 hybrid mod…. Works if u thinks it’s Stoll bluesy disk drives lol…
It’s still bluray drives..
Probably il reach my internet cap before even finishing a game….
Thrawn your not completely wrong but I’m not spending my money for a ps3 and a ps4 when I already have a ps3 but obviously I would if it came out as the same price if it had backward compatibility but that won’t be the case.
The cloud will probably offer you loads of titles that you have never played before and even after 10years your subscription will probably cost less than the games on there….
Don’t know why people can’t be happy when you can just keep your ps3 and have 2 gaming systems/blueray/streaming/etc in two different rooms.
I don’t understand how they are ripping you of… Everyone is well aware before day one of ps4 that it wasn’t going to be backwards compatible and what it’s capabilities were and everyone purchasing it shouldn’t really complain as a result.
Fourthly this streaming game service is optional and is only for those that can use it hence you get a 1 month free trial to find out if you can use it furthermore it should be treated like a service/app such as Netflix except with higher understandable internet standards.
Yes it isn’t for the people that can’t afford it so don’t moan if your internet is capped.
i hope they can use preloaded files to download like in mmorpg or browser games for faster loading and lesser bandwidth needed ,if they can use that internet connection in other countries wont be a problem.
That’s not how it worked
When streaming it mean you are using…….example
PS3 (Sony side) to your vita
So you can’t preload it anyway
It’s like watching live stream you can’t preload it
That’s the same but you just control the streaming
But i’m not sure if that is correct either i mean
Doesn’t that would need one millions PS3 to stream the game???
When one million people access at the same time
i think their using super computers as servers like google or big websites then having an unknown program running the emulations or whatever they call the process. and still when flashing a game or watching a stream movie your downloading files in computer’s cloud storage or temp files so its still need preloaded files, so we may have to download the temp files before starting the game for slow internet or play it while downloading the temp files for those who have fast internet connections.
Well Lets face it in order for us at $ony to keep stealing your money we have to figure out ways to do so.Knowing we have the ps+ service we could have simply merged PlayStation now but instead we need keep making money from you all. I know i know for people who have a Xbox live gold account you can keep your games that gold offers without the renewal scheme.But here is the thing we have better games that what they give you but you will have to keep paying us in order to keep the so called free game.A free lunch is never a free lunch remember that.
SEN we barley pay anything for a ps+ account in the 1st place and playstation now is a separate service which has a much larger array of games through the use of streaming using expensive servers!!!!
+playstation is a business not a public charity
+you don’t have to pay for it and experience a whole host of games you may have never of experienced otherwise.
Some really dumb comments on this page with the general conception “$ony stealing my money”. Do sony force you to pay for thing against your own will?
Do they take your personal possessions?
God I never knew how much of a crime syndicate sony have become :0