PlayStation Now will soon only be available on the PlayStation 4 and Windows PC, it's been announced. Sony's oft-misunderstood cloud streaming solution will prevent registrations starting 15th March on the PlayStation 3, Vita, and PS Vita TV, as well as all Bravia and Samsung televisions. The service will subsequently cease to function on said platforms starting 15th August.
The platform holder says that by cutting down the number of devices that it needs to support, it can better improve the experience. Realistically, it's probably not making enough money from subscriptions on the aforementioned platforms to justify continued investment in them. Still, a big part of the service's sales pitch was gaming without a console, so it's strange to see the television support tugged.
It's probably fair to say that PlayStation Now hasn't enjoyed the best start-to-life so far. The service has been completely misinterpreted as some kind of backward compatibility solution, when that was clearly never really its intention. Moreover, it's been slow to evolve, and its price has always seemed like poor value for money given the selection of titles that it offers thus far.
That said, it is a pretty impressive piece of technology, and if the company can keep it afloat long enough, then there's a possibility it may well form the backbone of PlayStation in the faraway future, when the concept of gaming on consoles becomes antiquated. The challenge that Sony faces – and has faced since the start – is making the service compelling in the present, and it's still a problem that it hasn't really solved.
[source blog.eu.playstation.com]
Comments 41
As many know, my internet sucks even with the rates I'm paying. I couldn't reliably use this feature.
Now what's really baffling, is why push it as gaming away from a console...and remove the TV support. I mean you can use it on PC...but that's probably going to be a console for someone anyway, at which point bespoke installed software is the way to go.
Also @get2sammyb it is time my dude. Sony dropping (At least partially), something they have yet to fully realise: BINGO! How long did this one go before they started dropping bits? I know it's just legacy support, minus TVs, but still, its not a good sign that they kill the part away from consoles.
I think they're still trying to figure out what to do with it to be honest. PlayStation Now is cool, but realistically it won't be ready for the prime time for a good five to ten years.
@KratosMD Well this is Sony's entry into the "Play Anywhere, Anytime, with Anyone" craze going on. And in tradition, it's neat but not fully realised and pushed ineffectively.
Nintendo has Switch, which is one piece of hardware for gaming at home or on the go, with whoever you want, but it's a Nintendo console.
Microsoft has Play Anywhere, allowing software across your Xbox line or your PC, but you still need a PC to do it.
Sony has PSNow, which requires a good enough internet connection and now the ability to stream it to one of a few devices. This has the downside of its a Sony product not called "The main PS Box".
I'm appreciating the efforts, but I'm not sure what's going to get it right first. I'd argue Switch, as that's one piece of hardware for everything, but its a Nintendo console so....
But my money is sure as hell not on PlayStation Now. And if for nothing else it's because of Sony and their abysmal track record with ventures.
Sad that they're dropping Vita support, but i'm wondering, if using Now on PS4, would remote play work whilst using it ? i've never tried it
They had to kick Vita players again to show their is no love 💔 and want it to die ☠️
Streaming videogames is the future (like it or not) and I trust Sony know what they are doing..still, a bit surprising I guess.
I have pretty decent internet and tried out a free game rental I had a few months ago, it wasn't too impressive. So far, every remote play and streaming device I've tried, from vita TV, ps now, to steam link, to vita remote play, has had issues. I think it's time to put it to rest, maybe try again next gen.
@Deadstanley That's a real shame, i really think dropping it from the Vita is a mistake, they should have had the option to buy a yearly subscription for this service, i think that would have made it a lot more popular than it currently is.
honestly i think it makes sense, the PS3 is on the way out and why would you want it built into the TV when you can get a PS4 which does it and so much more
It's still not available where I live, so personally I don't really care. It's unfortunate for the few that did actually use this feature though.
I was involved in the beta trials for PS Now and was really impressed. Not having owned a PS3, it gave me an opportunity to try the games I had missed out on and then Sony announced the pricing.
Not having it available in a large part of the consumer base, an assumption that everyone has high speed connectivity and pricing the service to highly killed it of before it had a chance.
Can PSTV get Netflix in it's place? It really doesn't do anything besides PS4 remote play.
Meh, it is not available in most of Europe anyway. It won't be missed even if it is gone from every device.
I love the idea of PS Now but $20 a month is too much.
I've been thinking what all this means. It's worth remembering that Sony bought Gaikai at a time when some people thought console gaming was on the way out so they needed something in case PS4 didn't take off. Of course Gaikai have been used for more then just PS Now, with Remote Play and Share Play been key features but PS Now has had numerous issues that it needs to address. Mainly getting it into other regions, moving away from other devices might free resources so they can do that as well maybe make it more valuable. The other big issue is that the major publishers don't seem keen to support it but are more then happy to let their 360 games BC. You'd think they would prefer PS Now because at least they would get some money off of it.
I was just thinking of getting a subscription too for my PSTV, guess I won't be now.
Just need to market the PSTV as the PS Now PSTV box. Still, Sony clueless. Meanwhile The Last Guardian and Gravity Rush 2 both crash and burn, still bewildered by Guerilla Cambridge closure.
The infrastructure just isn't there for something like streaming video games to really take off.
If PS Now doesn't work out for Sony, they'll probably end up doubling down on PSVR. It's their only viable 'thing,' as the power game won't be relevant on its own for too much longer.
Streaming will never ever be as good as playing on the real thing, that is PS3. You will always have some annoying lags, disconnects etc. Ant with last gen consoles and their games prices being as low as they are now that monthly PSNow subsciption is nowhere near as appealing as they have thought it will be. Also I never liked the idea of "borrowed" digital games, I like to own them and play them even when PSN will be long gone
@hadlee73 my internet is horrible but my friend has amazing Internet even better than some of my overseas friends its still a shame they haven't brang ps now here
PS Now is awful. I've tried it multiple times and though it has said my internet connection supports good quality it always felt and looked very very poor. This service was always dead in the water for the majority of the PS4 playerbase.
@BLP_Software Sony already entered the play anywhere with cross-buy and cross-save, it's still on ps ecosystem though. Psnow is for the far 5-10 year future, when internet speed is hopefully better.
They could have tried dropping the prices before binning support for a load of formats
I think PlayStation Now is a great service, mostly. As a Netflix for games, the idea is brilliant. The execution, not quite as much. Sadly, Internet infrastructure needs to be better for the service to really hit stride, it needs to be cheaper to be comparable to Netflix which is an easy sell, and it needs more games, preferably from PS2 or PSOne. Whether they'll ever be able to get there remains to be seen.
Killing it on Vita is sad for me because I play games on the service using my Vita if my girlfriend is playing on the PS4, but on a larger scale it probably makes a lot of sense. I can't imagine there's many people using PS Now on Vita.
I tried it out on Vita and it worked fine, and also managed to get it working on my PSTV. To be honest there were too many limiting factors:
1) Internet capacity isn't quite there for majority of gamers.
2) Price - subscription model is a good idea but too expensive imo.
3) The games library - some great games but many can be picked up cheap if you still have a PS3 (or 360 for some games).
Sony and all game manufacturers want games to be streamed - it is the future but that won't happen until the technology and infrastructure is there for enough of the people.
Unless they improve the price and library massively this will be the death of PS Now.
The main attraction of it was to play console quality games on your Vita or on the TV without a console. PC gamers won't care about the third party games on there which can be played more smoothly and cheaper on steam. They would only consider subscribing for a few months to play through the first party exclusives. For those people there simply isn't enough games on there to make it a continued subscription.
The thing about avoiding investment into those other systems is bull too, the app is already up and running on all these systems, there is nothing stopping them leaving the app available and not updating it any more, meaning very little further investment is necessary, if not zero.
Basically this went from being a forward looking streaming service that brought Playstation into the 21st century on a wide range of systems, to just being the PS4's backwards compatibility solution, and a pretty bad one at that. Disappointed, I loved the idea and was excited when they bought Gaikai. It could have been huge.
For me, the library and pricing were the only problems with the service. On PS3, most of the games on there could be bought to keep for cheaper. On PS4 this wasn't the case but it was still over priced and competing with the impressive and still growing PS4 library. With a more palatable price and larger collection akin to Netflix it could have been very popular, but at the mo it's very hard to find value in it outside of buying it for a month or two and smashing through the few games on there that interest you.
Never ever would spend a nickel on that service!! What a rip!
It may not have been intended as a backwards compatibility solution, but it was one potentially. Maybe it still is on PS4, but even besides the price uneasiness (I'd rather pay something like PS Plus's price for a few "rental slots" or even just cloud access to the titles I own on PS Store than half a PS4 price every year for the entire catalogue at once), it doesn't looks like an accessible solution to me anymore - somehow I doubt that such a kind of streamsception would work well on remote play. Not that it's available for Russian accounts to this day - and it has never come in time to add another facet to my Vita, alas.
In terms of backwards compatibility... maybe release a special/anniversary/deluxe PS3 with full hardware support of Remote Play instead? Otherwise, I'm absolutely not on the same page with people who claim Switch "doesn't need old third party ports from other platforms". Not that I really was to begin with.
@Deadstanley "or your Vita screen goes dark for even a split second (yes, I've accidentally hit the power button while trying to awkwardly press L2 or L3 on the rear panel), then you are going to get kicked off of the server and your game session will terminate, and your progress lost"
My only streaming experience is with Remote Play, but I dare suspect it's precisely about the power button (i.e. sending Vita to sleep mode) rather than "screen going black" - the latter can happen naturally if I leave Vita unattended, but as long as it's not asleep yet, a mere press of PS button turns it on without connection loss. Of course, disconnections are somewhat less of a pain on RP anyway since PS4 keeps running anyway and the worst you risk is being killed in-game. But PS Now? One certainly wishes they would at least introduce some "emergency quick saves" on exit, akin to those Nintendo's Virtual Console tends to use. Although PS3 is certainly more complex than a SNES emulator, so I may be asking for a very tricky thing. Still, it's another big concern.
@Deadstanley "resume native support", you mean. PS2 had it and PS3 at least had it initially before the later builds. Vita supports most PSP titles it can get in digital format and apparently makes use of PSP's PS1 support as well. PS4 seems like the first Sony console to miss out on that, not counting a handful of [assumably emulated?] "PS2 Classics", and even those are few and far between. The rest has to get ports and remasters.
I've tried PS Now and it's a decent service but I think Sony need to go down the EA Access route and make it available for a yearly fee rather than a monthly one, if EA charge £20 a year Sony should do the same or put up PSN by a tenner and lump Now in for the year as well
If they are dropping support for most platforms due to low uptake then that is a pretty bad reason to do so. Most people I know don't see the service as offering value so wouldn't consider subscribing, so that is where Sony needs to focus on this service, value for money. The price either needs to drop or the content needs to be more enticing to get people on board, dropping support will only likely lead to a slow death of the service, but that might be what Sony want for another of their products.
No more Vita support? Grmbl...
If only there was another way to play real home console games on the go...
Couldn't care less!! I have the opportunity to play PSNow games on my Samsung TV (at least at the moment until they remove it) but my PS4 Pro is hooked up to that TV anyway so it would still be easier via the console - I assume.
I have NO interest in PSNow as a service anyway. I wouldn't care if Sony cancelled it completely personally - although I am sure that a few people might be upset by this - as I am sure some may be upset that they are reducing the devices its available on.
Even if they integrated PSNow with PS+ (at no extra cost) as another 'bonus' to subscribers, I doubt I would take advantage.
As far as playing 'old' games on new hardware is concerned, I much prefer the way MS handle their Backwards Compatability. This also adds 'value' to Games with Gold as that means XB360 offerings are also available to XB1 owners. I know that excludes the 'original Xbox' games but I would rather see games that old remade, remastered or rebooted for the modern era than play them now anyway.
@BAMozzy but surely having PSNOW as part of plus would be better than xbox bc? and it would add just as much value to plus as bc does to live
The sooner it just ends altogether the better.
PSnow is ripoff, would never use it.
Also if streaming is the future I'll just stop playing new games
@GlynCR Of course it probably could add more value to PS+ and be better than BC on Xbox - I said I probably wouldn't take advantage of it.
I prefer the way Xbox handles the option of playing Older games on newer hardware currently. The fact that I don't have to pay anything to play my library of games and get given (up to) 2 older games every month free. Its much better than the way Sony are handling this at the moment - adding it into PS+ would change that but currently MS is the system I prefer.
PS Now is far from ready as Sony already knows better than anyone, like Sonys already pointed out physical hardware & games are going to be around a lot longer than people think. But for a future goal it a very good idea, the only difference is there will be no hardware costs. And you'll be able to play it any device you own, but when places like the UK have slower Internet speeds than Ukraine you know its a long time off.
@BAMozzy BC is something Sony should have implemented as soon as MS did tbf I'd prefer it tbh but if Now becomes part of Plus (like it should) I'd be happy
Phew, I nearly bought a Samsung TV in November simply because it had PSNow available.
Funny thing is, I still havent got PSNow.
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