PS Now

Invites to the closed beta for PS Now have been sent out by Sony. I got one and will have a look at it. I can't say I'm overly pumped to be streaming PS3 games though - I only boxed up my PS3 two weeks ago when I bought my Xbox One!

I'm sure a few more of us than me and TPM (saw your underwhelmed tweet, dude ) got the invite - any takers?

That lack of enthusiasm notwithstanding, if there are any gems available that *need* to be played  post your recommendations here .

Well, that is disappointing  I applied not long after they announced it. Maybe my PS Plus lapsing affected it.

Anyway, I tried it the other night on my US account as I had some spare credit. I bought Uncharted 2 for 4 hours and I was really surprised with how well it worked. It didn't look quite as good as it being on a PS3 in front of you, but it was close. And I couldn't detect any latency or lag at all. Gameplay wise it was bang on, I was popping enemies with total ease.

Ive had my first go. I played Homeland and BlazBlue, two games I'd never tried on PS3. I was impressed at the service - no lag, games look like, well PS3 ga es. Sound quality was pretty good too.

But the flaw, for me, like I said on here when it was announced, is that it is too soon after PS3 was current gen for this to be interesting. PS1 and PS2 games would have been more likely to pique my interest beyond the novelty factor. Or streaming PS4 games that I might otherwise been playing would have been good too.

sorenlorensen wrote: TPM (saw your underwhelmed tweet, dude ) got the invite - any takers?

This thread actually reminded me to accept the T&Cs to get my code generated because I was so excited to try this........or not :p

Will give it a look at some point but seeing as I still have my entire PS3 collection and I don't believe I'm missing any games that I was already interested in I'll be surprised if I can find anything to 'test' the service with.

You lot reminded me to look so I checked my email and I am on the beta.

I wonder if the whole thing is to test the water for the desire (and strength of the infrastructure) for a new game streaming service on PS4 or PS5. And that might be why Sony snubbed EA Access.

I tested it last night, played a bit of Killzone 2. It's a fair bit away from being good enough for me to consider on my broadband link (speedtests show I have 8Mb download and 1Mb upload).

I do like how it properly integrates with your PSN profile so you can still see friends lists and trophy info etc.

I think this would be a brilliant platform for demos, if you just wanted a 5 minute taster of a game before buying.

My connection varies massively during the day (c15mb-45mb down, 5-15mb up) and was fine for the platform.

Renting new games - any game -for a couple of days max might be a phase two for Sony, softening up the user base for a digital only PS5 while at the same time not alienating the retail players that it needs for PS4/Vita

What's really cool is that you can use your saves that are in the cloud from PS3

Moozo wrote:What's really cool is that you can use your saves that are in the cloud from PS3

This I did not know - that is a very good feature - I'm gonna test it!

Got my beta invite today. Will try it out soon.

So far its not been going good for me... It did a test on my connection and said it worked well... then I tried Far Cry blood dragon and only managed a couple of 5 minute goes without it timing out and dropping it.

Just got my invite. Did anyone else manage to try t?

The beta has now gone into paid rental mode but the prices are pretty high.

There are two options. 

£4.99 for two days or £9.99 for 30 days (PS3 games)
£2.99 for two days or £7.99 for 30 days (PSN games)

It wasn't a service I was particularly interested in anyway, and never will be at those prices. It's cheaper to just buy an old game pre-owned in most cases, take Uncharted 2 for example. It would cost you a fiver to rent it for two days or a tenner for a month, CEX are selling it for £4. A lot of the titles have also been in PSN sales for less than £5, and will be again, so I can't understand why anyone would want to pay £5-£10 to rent them when they could own them outright for less.  

To be fair to Sony though they did say they'd test pricing structures and rental periods and see how things went, so these prices aren't set in stone forever yet.

I never did get around to trying the service and at those prices, I never will.

Admittedly the service isn't really being geared towards the likes of us forum members but I fail to see how it could be a hit for Joe Public either. Yes, Sony may get one or two rentals from the average consumer but after that I would imagine that if those aforementioned consumers decide that 'hey, this gaming lark is quite fun' then they'd investigate the pricing of a PS3 and any game that interested them, then realising that, at the current pricepoint the service is just not value of money.

Of course, I could be wrong, maybe those that aren't accustomed to gaming have a different mindset but I just can't see how they service could have any long-term appeal to be worthwhile.

yeah I agree I cant see this doing well at all... anything I want id rather buy physically own so that I can either sell it when done for a bit of cash back or hold on to it if I believe its going to be rare or Ill want to have another bash at it latter

They'll have to drop those ridiculous prices.

In the US beta they started high and dropped so the same should happen here.

However, there just aren't enough games I want to play with it. Especially now with Uncharted remaster.

Yes, it's overpriced and under delivering on content. Must do better Sony.

the rental prices are nonsense.  I can't see the business here.  It makes much more sense to me  if it is being used as a proof of concept for the streaming of current gen content

Sony should seriously consider following Microsoft's lead in allowing PS3 discs to access the PS Now equivalents.

Yes they should...