PlayStation Now is officially on PC right... now!

[dsheinem]

the appeal is that I decided a while back to sell all my console stuff and go PC only. It's interesting to me that a console publisher would try an experiment like this to bring console games to PC in a Netflix-like way. I'm not 100% happy with the pricing model, but I am fascinated with the concept and as a PC-only gamer, am interested and excited to play with such a new service and see how viable it is.

If I really wanted to I could just pull the PS3 out of my closet that's been there for a couple of years but have been too lazy to sell. I'm pretty sure I have a copy of Heavy Rain around as well still. That's not the point. The point is that I've long dreamed of "one box to rule them all," and Sony bringing this service to PC is an interesting turn of events that I'm excited to test.

(I probably should have just started this thread last week when we first started talking about it in the Random Gaming Thoughts thread and I already kind of said all this stuff...)

I think you're doing it right - plus if you avoid a long term commitment, maybe they pop a sale or something and you end up paying $50 for a year.

Yup, your initial post makes a lot more sense to me after your follow up. I hope you find it to be awesome. And hey - if so, maybe you can sell off your PS3 stuff to pay for a year or two of the service!

[noiseredux]

another interesting angle is that apparently instead of a subscription you can just rent games for a week or a month or whatever. I suppose there's something interesting there as well. Again, though (from the other thread) - I think that $10/mo would be a lot easier to swallow as a subscription, and I'd actually much rather have the option to just buy games I want to add to my account to stream them when I want.

Also I meant to mention RE: your original post that you don't actually need the DS4 dongle, that's only if you want your DS4 to be wireless.

[noiseredux]

[Exhuminator]

Love seeing hardcore PC gamers getting excited to play old console games.

The tech behind this is pretty cool though, I'm good with it.

[noiseredux]

Love seeing hardcore PC gamers getting excited to play old console games.

it's more that I'm excited that PC gamers in general now have access to hundreds of games that they didn't a few days ago. I think that's a good thing.



Anyway, I did play around with this a bit last night and I know you're all waiting with bated breath to hear my thoughts...

First off all, the DualShock 4 is meh. Maybe it's just that I've had years of using Xbox controllers now, which I always found more comfortable than PS controllers anyway. But man, the DS4 feels less comfy to me than the DS3 did. I don't think I have freakishly large hands, but I feel like a giant when I hold this thing. Not a fan. Though I do like that weird Select/Start pad thingy on it. And the blue light.

It had been so long since I used my PS3 that I couldn't remember my log-in info anymore, and I don't have access to the email I had used when I set it up, so I started a new PSN acct for this. Sadly, I am now noiserdx.

The PSNow UI on PC really needs some fine tuning. The #1 biggest gripe I have with it is that there is no search feature. How the F can that be? You have a library of games to sort thru but you can't just type in the name of the game you want to play? Instead it's a bunch of rows Netflix-style ("Top 50 games," "Arcade games," etc) and then below that you've got A-Z rows. Pretty dumb. At least you can add games to a Favorites row for easy access. But this needs to be fixed yesterday. The other one is equally baffling: You can't peruse the UI with the controller. This really threw me off at first because I thought the DS4 just wasn't working. The odd thing is that there is a "mouse mode" and a "controller mode," yet when I enabled controller mode still nothing. Maybe this is a bug? But basically I had to choose a game with the mouse, and then the controller worked fine in game.

Playing the games has been a good experience so far. They take like 30-60 seconds to load up and then it's been pretty smooth. It is certainly weird to see a game in 720 on my 1440 monitor, and I shit you not: The first game I loaded up I went into the options to look for graphical settings... I have obviously not played a console game in a very long time!

I should tell y'all that I'm playing with my PC wired to the router which is right next to me, and that I generally have damn good internet speeds. I'm certain that user experience will vary. I suppose I could later test this out on my laptop using wifi in another room if anyone's curious about performance.

I started with Shadow Of The Colossus just because I really wanted to say "I'm playing Shadow Of The Colossus on my PC right now." I just wandered around for a while, not actually looking for a colossus but just to test things out. The camera felt so janky and difficult and I had trouble determining if that was some kind of lag on the part of the analog sticks or if I just have forgotten how bad the camera really is in SOTC?

Next I tried Street Fighter III 3rd Strike. Game looked good and played good. I noticed no lag or anything, but quit after just one fight because I plan to be playing this for September's TR.

Then I fired up Journey (after adding the PSNow launcher to Steam's overlay so I could take screenshots*). Again, I had no issues w/ lag or anything. Man, I love Journey. I played the first level and was like "nice, I should play through this again soon."

*(I'm pretty sure there's a way to be taking screenshots directly in the PSNow environment. I haven't really checked out the PSNow XMB or anything yet.)

Anyway, my first impression so far is that if you've got the right network environment, this service is pretty impressive. I'll continue testing stuff out throughout my 7-day free trial and keep reporting back if anyone else is interested in this.

[samsonlonghair]

I thought SONY was going to phase out the XMB "Xross Media Bar". Why is this awkward user interface design from the PSP still persisting? I even hate the name who the hell spells "cross" with an "X" for goodness sake?

[Exhuminator]

I'll go ahead and say something I said years ago*, this streaming service is the "console" gaming of the not-too-distant future. You'll have a client box that hooks to your HDTV and internet, and then you'll stream games from server farms, through a subscription service most likely. You won't own the games you play, not even digitally. The games reside far away on said servers. But since most people never replay a game once they beat it, I guess it doesn't much matter. The only thing holding this back from being the standard already, is the USA's spotty high speed internet coverage. But that's getting better day by day. It's only a matter of time before the publishers have all the power, and gamers won't own anything. And it'll happen, because the vast majority of gamers seek immediate gratification, and this technology allows just that.



*I'm in no way saying this was "my unique speculation", tons of folks have said the same thing.

[isiolia]

I thought SONY was going to phase out the XMB "Xross Media Bar". Why is this awkward user interface design from the PSP still persisting? I even hate the name who the hell spells "cross" with an "X" for goodness sake?

Hadn't heard of them doing that. I mean, the PS4 iteration is different from the PSP/PS3/Blu-ray player one, but I don't recall them saying they would get rid of it.

X for cross isn't unheard of. In addition to being the abbreviation used on road signs, like School Xing, xfit is a common abbreviation for Crossfit, or Lax for Lacrosse.


Games-as-streaming isn't necessarily bad, and it's not necessarily something that has to completely replace dedicated devices. Same as we still have Blu-rays alongside Netflix and Hulu. The upside to it is that it'd help blur the generational gaps between games. A good game, like a good TV show, could just be available, instead of tied to an older console that not everyone might have.

[noiseredux]

X for cross isn't unheard of. In addition to being the abbreviation used on road signs, like School Xing, xfit is a common abbreviation for Crossfit, or Lax for Lacrosse.

plus, y'know... Street Fighter X Tekken, Project X Zone, X Edge, etc...

The upside to it is that it'd help blur the generational gaps between games. A good game, like a good TV show, could just be available, instead of tied to an older console that not everyone might have.

I was thinking about this, too. The system requirements to run PSNow are low.

Windows 7 (SP 1), 8.1 or 10
3.5 GHz Intel Core i3 or 3.8 GHz AMD A10 or faster
300 MB or more; 2 GB or more of RAM

I mean... you don't even need a GPU. This kind of illustrates a situation where cheap non-gaming PC's can now grant access to full on games. I mean, you could technically be running this on a Windows tablet or cheapo laptop.

[Exhuminator]

Games-as-streaming isn't necessarily bad

I probably sounded like I meant it was, but I don't think it's entirely a negative thing. There are just as many positives as negatives. I just worry about game preservation mainly.