Topic: PlayStation Now Download Option

Saw a LadBible (I know) article through Google cards that suggests that PlayStation Now is likely getting a download option.

Any actual games journos want to weigh in? 😂

If true... Game changer!

@KALofKRYPTON do you mean as in downloading the game instead of streaming but still needing to pay for the service?

if so i think it sounds like a good idea

@FullbringIchigo Still pay for the service as is but able to download rather than stream.

PlayStation Now Might Become Downloadable

http://www.ladbible.com/entertainment/gaming-playstation-now-...

Shared from my Google feed

@KALofKRYPTON i think it would open the service up to more people especially those with weak or spoty internet so yeah i'm all for it

It might work for the PS4 games but it won't for PS3 because as we all know the chip architect for the PS3 won't let games run natively on the PS4. With that said that will make it so that a large portion of the Plasystation Now catalogue will be unaccessible. Which means that is more then likely a rumor.

@Tasuki Honestly, I really think that's smoke & mirrors. The Cell architecture was unusual sure, but they said exactly the same about the 'Emotion Engine' running on PS3.
Which turned out to be rubbish.

@KALofKRYPTON In the case of the cell architecture I wouldn't be so sure. Alot of developers hated it and have gone on the record of how much it was a p.i.t.a. to make games for, which is why alot of games where 360 exclusives last gen or why the PS3 versions were just not as good as the 360 version of the same game.

Honestly even if there was a download option for PlayStation Now I think all it would do is highlight the poor value the service offers in general, really.

I've just looked and PS Now apparently has over 650 games in its library now, which sounds pretty incredible but they're nearly all much older games or titles you can get pick up for just a few quid on their own. For £13 a month or however much they sell it for now, it just doesn't represent consistent value for money at all.

I want PS Now to succeed in some way, but it's a long way off imo.

@Tasuki while there was a minor gulf in parity in a handful of titles during the first third of the life-cycle last gen, through the work of first party dev's and more industrious 3rd parties - the later half of the releases for PS3 were often the better version of a multiplatform game.

There's no mystery surrounding the Cell set up anymore, and we're talking about a first party service anyway.

@roe there is the convenience aspect. There are plenty of games I'd still play through Now if it weren't a streaming service. I don't want to buy and keep and find space for a PS3.

Is it just me, or wasn't there originally options in PS NOW to just "rent" a game stream for a set number of hours, or buy the streamed version of a game outright? I think those options need to return too!

@smelly_jr No they did originally have where you could rent a game for 3, 7, 30, or 90 days individually or a $20 dollar a month package which was a handful of games selected by Sony. Not sure about Europe but it was that way in the US. Then at some point they switched to the current business model.

If PS Now was able to work as a software emulator and not just a streaming service, it could work. I mean, you can get PS3 emulators for PC, so it would just be an official version of that. The Cell processor is then not an issue, and it's the same process used for the Xbox backwards compatibility programe, so they may be looking toward this for inspiration.

My understanding of software emulation is that it can be buggy and unpredicatable, however, and attention would need to be given to individual releases to have them work well. Unlike hardware emulation, which just works. (Edited a bit out here about PS3's PS1/PS2 bc because my facts are a bit shakey and I can't be bothered to research it at the moment!)

Anyway, it could work.

https://www.eurogamer.net/amp/digitalfoundry-2017-xbox-one-x-...

"It's not an easy task because fundamentally, the Xbox 360's PowerPC processor is worlds apart from Xbox One's x86 foundation. Floating point calculations need to be adapted from 40-bit to 32-bit, with potential implications for aspects like collision detection, but Microsoft's aim here is clear - to be able to host game code on their virtualised Xbox 360 and for it to run as close as possible to original hardware.

But fundamentally, Xbox 360 back-compat works on the principle of an emulation layer. There is some hardware assistance and - yes - some 'secret sauce' (Microsoft didn't want to be drawn on how the emulator supports Xbox 360's VMX128 vector units, for example), but the team is now at the point now where everything an Xbox 360 can do, its emulator can mirror in software."