Playstation Now

[SuperRickyFuller]

BBC News (World) ?@bbcworld 1m
Sony announces plans for Playstation Now cloud gaming service, allowing console-free access to subscribers bbc.in/1cz3EXt #CES2014

Sounds absolutely awesome!

[Santy]

It already happened a couple of years back with that failed box that was meant to work the same way. It's very risky and will require both a high bandwidth and low ping not to mention streaming often suffers from quality issues. Internet connections are improving, but playing most games with a 30-40ms delay as you're likely to in these cases will probably be a bit of a turn off.

Wouldn't surprise me if they're trying to get towards the asian model of pay to play for games. Some games like Skyrim I've played for well over 300 hours since it came out. Imagine if they charged just 50p an hour or even every 2 hours, that would still be £75 at least. It's something that makes me very reluctant to embrace the technology as a result.

A subscription would most likely be on a time basis (eventually if not at first) under the guise of so you can play as many games as you want within the allotted time. Every piss, shit, drink or glance away from the screen would be money wasted. Numerous game developers are trying to encourage a few of the practices from the asian games. If activision could get away with it they'd already be charging for time spent on the game as well as charging you for the game.

[Deleted]

I was wondering when they were going to show up with more Gaikai news. Looks like they've made good on their promise of more news in the new year. As good as remote play is between the PS4 and Vita is, it's still patchy and gets interference at times due to the unpredictable nature of Wifi.

They've been on a roll this last year or so with goodwill gestures but I wouldn't expect this'll just tie in with the PS+ sub. They've plugged 230 million into the service and christ knows how much it takes to maintain the servers so they've got to claw back a profit somewhere. Add to that the amount they lost with the old PS3's and I think they're selling PS4's at loss.

I really dislike your suggestion of the timed price structure Sants, but I can see that being a possibility. You'd have to piss in a bottle to make sure you wasted minimal time and considering games can take weeks to complete it'd cost a fucking fortune. If it's going to be available on tablets, phones and TV's I could see another subscription service like Netflix possibly. Maybe 8 quid a month for unlimited access or 3.99 per rental?

Still, the fact that they're pushing this is a big milestone in gaming.

I know the units tested here will be linked to a server close by but there's some hands on here.

www.destructoid.com/playstation-now-hands-on-impressions-268611.phtml

I am excite.

[Revolver Ocelot]

If it works well it will be absolutely amazing. Big if though.

They recommend a latency of 5m/s though, that's not exactly common in the UK or US, my Virgin connection hits 4-5 sometimes but it's usually over 10 and that's as fast as you can get here ping wise without being located closer to the hub, add wifi into the equation and the majority will be nowhere near the recommended latency.

Santy's theory worries me also, they could monopolise the service massively as no one else can compete with them, they have also spunked so much money on the infrastructure that it wouldn't surprise me if it's hugely overpriced.

All that being said, the ability to play any PS3 game on my Vita is a really exciting prospect and if they price the service fairly I would love to give it a go and finally finish The Last of Us as my fat bastard died half way through it.

Another disappointment is having to wait until after the US and Canada get it again, PS sells better in Europe than it does in North America so the only reason I can think of is that it is logistically easier to setup the servers there, which does make sense I suppose but still annoying nevertheless.

[AshleyScfc]

The future of gaming. Add half again onto PS Plus and it's probably worth it. They're beating MS to the punch and securing their future with the netflix of gaming. There's a reason On Live went under, the big boys saw the danger