Engadget: PlayStation Now still isn't good enough

Started by the-pi-guy, Feb 20, 2019, 01:45 AM

previous topic - next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

the-pi-guy

Engadget: PlayStation Now still isn't good enough | ResetEra

Quote
The company's marketing is quick to highlight its biggest and most-loved titles, including Red Dead Redemption, Steep and Mafia III. Scroll across to the 'All Games' tab, however, and you'll find that the heavyweight pickings are slim. The bulk of the library is filled with forgettable titles such as Alien Spidy, Gem Smashers and Kung Fu Rabbit. There are four Formula 1 games -- yes, four -- ranging from F1 2014 to 2017. While a valuable form of game preservation, they feel like needless padding. How many people want to go back and play F1 2014?  Click to expand...      The catalog does have some big hitters, however, including The Last of Us(the PS3 version, not the PS4 remaster), Fallout: New Vegas and BioShock Infinite. But as I started bookmarking titles, I quickly realized how many were already sitting in my library. Bloodborne, Until Dawn, For Honor, Mafia III, Journey, God of War III: Remastered -- I had earned all of these through PlayStation Plus, an older subscription service that costs $9.99 per month or $59.99 per year and is required to play PS4 games online.  Click to expand...      Buoyed with confidence, I tried Sonic Generations, a blazing-fast mixture of 2D and 3D stages. I charged through the first couple of levels with a grimace, rather than a Cheshire cat grin on my face. Something about the platforming felt a tad off. A short delay, perhaps, between my thumb hitting the X button and watching the blue blur launching himself over a chasm of game-ending spikes. I was suddenly aware that my eyeballs were watching a feed, rather than a game running natively on the PS4.  Click to expand...      The flawless performance made me think of Xbox Games Pass, a subscription service that leverages the true backward compatibility of the Xbox One. There's no way that Sony can match this, of course. But it could aim for a similar breadth and quality of current-gen titles. Xbox Games Pass offers every Microsoft exclusive on the same day that it hits store shelves. Meanwhile, I have no idea if the God of War reboot, Detroit: Become Human and Insomniac's Spider-Man will ever come to PlayStation Now.  Click to expand...  Much more at the link:
https://www.engadget.com/2019/02/18/playstation-now-re-review/

 In short, Summers argues that the selection of PS4 games on the service is noticeably thin, particularly if you already pay for PS Plus and take advantage of the monthly free games, of which there is a lot of overlap. He also draws comparisons to Xbox Game Pass, which lets you play first party Microsoft games day and date with the retail release, while there are many of Sony's own exclusives, major ones at that, that have yet to appear on PS Now months after release. The inherently imperfect nature of streaming (PS3) games with input lag is another issue, although I'm not sure what, if anything, can be done to address this. Your mileage will probably vary. Lastly the author addresses a few other more minor grievances including general UI stuff and Sony switching off streams for inactivity (a system-level autosave feature would be pretty neat tbh)  
[/size]

Legend

Hmm I expected this to be tech focused not library focused.

PS Now is in a weird spot now that game pass is a thing. Instead of PS Now being the only thing in town, it now has a competitor.

I think the main problem that PS Now has is that gave up on being a streaming service. Right now PS Now is only available on PS4 and Windows. It doesn't run anything that couldn't run locally. I don't see how next gen will help either.


In a way, it is a broken concept. Either PS Now needs to be treated as a platform in itself where games cost extra, or it needs to be closer to game pass but only for PS5. The problem at the moment is that PS Now is not a valid alternative to owning a PS4/5. Way too many games are missing.


darkknightkryta

Hmm I expected this to be tech focused not library focused.

PS Now is in a weird spot now that game pass is a thing. Instead of PS Now being the only thing in town, it now has a competitor.

I think the main problem that PS Now has is that gave up on being a streaming service. Right now PS Now is only available on PS4 and Windows. It doesn't run anything that couldn't run locally. I don't see how next gen will help either.


In a way, it is a broken concept. Either PS Now needs to be treated as a platform in itself where games cost extra, or it needs to be closer to game pass but only for PS5. The problem at the moment is that PS Now is not a valid alternative to owning a PS4/5. Way too many games are missing.


It used to be on TVs, PS3 and PSVita.  The question needs to be why it's not on TVs anymore.  Hell, why isn't it on Sony TVs?  I bought the service for a year, cause it was on sale, and I like it.  I just have too many games to get through to utilize it.  But if there's someone who casually games, this thing is golden.  It runs pretty well too.  The input lag is pretty dang good too.  Oh well.  We'll see if Sony repushes it next gen.  It really needs to become an Android/Android TV app.

Legend

It used to be on TVs, PS3 and PSVita.  The question needs to be why it's not on TVs anymore.  Hell, why isn't it on Sony TVs?  I bought the service for a year, cause it was on sale, and I like it.  I just have too many games to get through to utilize it.  But if there's someone who casually games, this thing is golden.  It runs pretty well too.  The input lag is pretty dang good too.  Oh well.  We'll see if Sony repushes it next gen.  It really needs to become an Android/Android TV app.
Exactly. It used to have a reason to use streaming tech.

darkknightkryta

Exactly. It used to have a reason to use streaming tech.

Yeah.  No reason for no Android TV app.