PlayStation Now

They just announced a subscription plan for PlayStation Now in America: http://blog.us.playstation.com/2015/01/05/playstation-now-subscription-program-all-the-details/#sf6733256

$19.99 for a month or $44.99 for 3 months.

Not to shabby!

If we get similar pricing over here it will be a great thing to help fill in the dead times between big releases. (I'm looking at you summer gaming drought!)

Seems very expensive if all it gives you is streaming of old PS3 games. Am I missing something?

CPC6128 wrote:Seems very expensive if all it gives you is streaming of old PS3 games. Am I missing something?

QFT!

Not that interested in Playstation Now to be honest, paying a subscription to play old games just doesn't appeal to me.

I'm more interested in the future potential of the service more than anything. 

At the moment for £15 or so I month I would be happy. This isn't a you need to have a constant subscription thing like Netflix just yet because they are focusing on legacy titles at the moment. I am more than happy to spend that money two or three times a year to play the games I missed the first time around or want to play again.

They're baking this thing into future Smart TVs as well. I think they need to drop that price though. It needs to be about 5 quid a month or 3 quid if you are a PSN Plus member.

If it works like OnLive did where you could pause a game and then pick up a few days later on a different computer then I may be interested, but again, only at a lower price.

This seems a high price to play old games. On the list, I've played everything I want to and I have more than enough actual PS4 games in my pile of shame to keep me going.

However , I agree with Cal that the potential is there for making something worthwhile. For me, it isn't there yet though. 

How does this compare with the monthly cost of Netflix in the US?

Is $19.99 a month really too expensive? 

Games provide way more value for money than movies and TV. Also there is a lot more going on behind the scenes in order to provide this service over just streaming video. There is a constant loop of backwards and forwards data and the network is design to try and reduce lag. 

When you're looking at £40-60 for new games even if you only finish two games a month you are still in the bank.

If you're comparing it to the Netflix of today you are looking at it wrong. Compare it to Netflix when it first started its streaming service. It had a very limited library of content and way more problems in terms of picture quality and infrastructure. Over time it grew and changed into the behemoth it is today.

Also as I have said before this is step in the right direction for preserving gaming's legacy on the whole. You're not worrying about hardware solutions on your end, you just get to enjoy the games you want, when you want. If Microsoft came out with a similar service I would be delight, if Steam suddenly switched to streaming via the cloud the internet and PC gaming would explode.

cal_el wrote:Is $19.99 a month really too expensive? 

Yes, it definitely is. Even if it is £15 per month that is £180 per year just to play old games. Compared to PSN+ which is £40 per year and gives you a load of games there seems to be a large value differential. I honestly expected PS Now to be free or a couple of quid for PSN+ members, I was gobsmacked by the price.

You are correct in that the infrastructure behind streaming games is more complex than streaming video but customers really don't care about that. To them, it is just streaming, but almost three times more expensive than Netflix.

I do want this to succeed though, I have no doubt that this is the future of things (I can hear TPM's groan from here ) but to get this off the ground I think they need to lower the price of entry.

CPC6128 wrote:I do want this to succeed though, I have no doubt that this is the future of things (I can hear TPM's groan from here ) but to get this off the ground I think they need to lower the price of entry.

Me moan? Never

Seriously though, I'm not as opposed to change as some of you may believe. When I consider my consumption of other forms of media, be it movies, music, books, magazines or anything else, I'm all about embracing digital/streaming now and the only type of media that I still own in physical form are my games. My vinyl, CD's, DVD's, Blu-rays, books are all a thing of the past and have long since been gotten rid of so it's probably only a matter of time before my game collection goes the same way.

With that said, my reluctance to go digital with gaming stems from the fact that I believe that my enjoyment and consumption of the aforementioned other media is not what it was. It feels like years since I've discovered and/or enjoyed any new music, my enjoyment of movies/TV has also waned considerably in that time and I can't remember the last time I discovered/enjoyed a recent book. I do honestly feel that by my decision to go digital on everything else has made those forms of media more 'disposable' than it had been previously, not that the presence of a tangible physical product should really make that much of a difference. With everything else suddenly feeling like it's become more disposable, I really don't like the idea that my feelings towards gaming may change too, should I opt for a digital/streaming future.

It will be interesting to see the future evolution of Playstation Now but at the current price point with the limitations of the current catalogue, it's not something I'll be embracing any time soon.

I don't think there are many people for whom a subscription model will really appeal to, actually. Who wants to pay that sort of money to play old games on a new system on a long-term basis?

If, however, I can played Uncharted 2 for a week for 5 quid then I'm in.

Personally I've played all the PS3 games I want to now and as I'm not really one for replaying lots and lots of older games, and never have been, it just wouldn't make sense for me whatever the charge. I'm happy to continue subscribing to PS+ but I'll give PS Now a miss.

I think the future will be all new games available on a platform such as this.  A subscription may then make sense and may even be worth c£15pm (or maybe £20), if I'm not buying games.  For a library of old games though, I don't think that it will find a market (£5-7pm, maybe).  I'd be more interested if it was PS1 or PS2 games, tbh (particularly the latter, as I only got a PS2 v late on in its cycle and there'd be plenty there I'd be interested in).

I don't think we'll ever see all new games appear on the service, but if they ever did I don't think they'd come under the £15/20 month subscription band, publishers would never accept that. You'd probably have to pay for them on an individual basis.

Perhaps a flat fee for the service (and old games) and then a premium for new ones (but you can't get the latter without signing up to the former)?

I've no doubt that in the future all games/TV/music/movies will stream over the internet. The need for boxes under the telly will be no more.

Then, shortly after that, we'll just jack our cerebral cortex into the Matrix and we all know what happens after that

You can register for the closed beta here:

PSNow Beta sign-up

Hopefully at least one of us will get in so we can see how good or bad it is.

CPC6128 wrote:You can register for the closed beta here:

PSNow Beta sign-up

Hopefully at least one of us will get in so we can see how good or bad it is.

Done!

Also done.