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Engadget: PlayStation Now still isn't good enough
- Thread starter Neat
- Start date
As someone whose main systems are elsewhere, I'd buy such a service if it had the good first parties. Since it's mainly older third parties, Game Pass covers this role far better for me. The sheer volume of games is impressive but not so much when half of it has been available for peanuts for a long time.
The poor streaming performance is a bigger issue than the library tbh and I don't think there is an easy way to fix until PS5.
Pretty much the same thing I said the other day in the Game Pass vs PS Now thread. The library just isn't there and the streaming tech isn't good enough to really justify the price for most people.
I don't expect it, but it'd be nice considering Microsoft does it with Game Pass and EA with Origin Access.
I don't expect it, but it'd be nice considering Microsoft does it with Game Pass and EA with Origin Access.
I don't know when economically it made sense for first party single player AAA games to sold on PSN, if ine guy pays thee and exclusives first party single.player game AAA at full price games in one year, Sony have 180 dollars of revenue much more than the price of PSNow and PSNow subscription need to cover the cost of all games not only this three AAA single player games. Even at half price if the game is sold on PSN it made no sense at all maybe under quarter the price.
PS5 being full backwards compatible and Now having full download options for all GENS would make it a force to be reckoned with.
Judging in its current form is a waste of time, it came to the wrong gen.
Judging in its current form is a waste of time, it came to the wrong gen.
Yeah, the price makes it a complete non-starter. And with Gamepass you're installing the games locally; Now is damn near unplayable on a Wifi connection.
When Microsoft and EA will release the same quantity of single player AAA games with the same quality than Sony it will be comparable. This is not the case for the moment. Don't compare Apples and orange. MS produce multiple GAAS game and the few AAA with single player component have big multiplayer component.
Edit: in Naughty Dog games, the mp component aren't as big than MS Halo or Gears of War.
Having a download only option would help to reduce the price of PSNow.
I don't really see how that's relevant.
If anything, I'd think that Sony's games being on PS Now day one would get them even more subscriptions resulting in even more revenue.
Yeah I got a 7 day one.
I Streamed RDR + Killzone:SF
RDR was a PS3 game so it looked like a PS3 game it ran well OK apart from judder when panning the camera, not that good really.
Killzone on the other hand did not have the same issue and being a PS4 game it looked a lot better, I could quite happily play games on this service. There was some camera judder on a cutscene and the res is 720p I think but apart from those issues it's really quite impressive a lot better then the last time I tried streaming on ONLIVE about 6-8yrs ago.
I don't think I will buy it though.
For it to be worth while for me I want to be able to stream my own games to my phone and the game selection needs to be better.
But if there was no alternatives like gamepass, I would be quite happy with PSNOW.
This has further cemented my belief that streaming is the future.
I Bet if most gamers saw me playing killzone they would not even know it was streaming.
No if is not how it works. You need to have many people subcribing for make it works much more. I am not sure 15/20 millions would be enough if a publisher released three single player games in a year. And Sony needs to cover the cost of all games on the same service not only this three games. And another problem single player AAA games are more expensive to create than multiplayer games. And revenue not equals profit, I am sure current sales of first party single player AAA games are much more profitable than launching the games day one on PSNow.
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-10-27-the-economics-of-single-player-games
For a shooter campaign is 75% of the cost of a game:
https://www.technobuffalo.com/2016/...zinski-single-player-games-75-percent-budget/
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Just tossing some theories out there in terms of PS Now's library. If we think about the way things are now, PS Now is only available on 2 platforms with the PS4 and PC. It's a relatively limited audience when you consider that eventually we should see the service available on TVs, mobiles and who knows what other sort of devices. So in a way it would make sense for Sony to wait until they have the potential for a much larger audience before ramping up the number of first party titles on the service. That lets them continue to rake in the tons of cash they are now with the current business model in the meantime all while building up a quality list of titles that could populate the service when it's ready.
If theories are true that they're waiting for PS5 hardware to install in their servers to expand the service further geographically and for 5G to expand to mobiles then we should probably see some movement on that front within the next year. Once they have a far larger potential audience to cater to then it might make sense to start offering more first party titles. Maybe not necessarily on launch, but more recent titles like Horizon Zero Dawn or Detroit for example.
If theories are true that they're waiting for PS5 hardware to install in their servers to expand the service further geographically and for 5G to expand to mobiles then we should probably see some movement on that front within the next year. Once they have a far larger potential audience to cater to then it might make sense to start offering more first party titles. Maybe not necessarily on launch, but more recent titles like Horizon Zero Dawn or Detroit for example.
I agree that Sony really ought to be quicker at adding some of their hits to PlayStation Now. I feel that 6 to 12 months after release would be good, as it would give the game ample time to rack up sales at retail, then get a "second wind" with PS Now. As jeromeSF pointed out earlier, games like Uncharted 4 and Horizon: Zero Dawn should be up there by now.
In my experience, after 3 years of use, it has definitely improved. It's been a gradual shift, so you might not notice a dramatic difference from one day to the next. Looking back at 2016, though, it's clearly made impressive strides, with better image quality and far less instances of stuttering or freezing.
See above. It is not at all stagnant or "entombed in amber". The addition of downloads was a major change, but they've also done an admirable job of growing the game catalog and implementing other minor technological improvements.
I've never loved the concept of game streaming myself. I mostly worry about the quality of the games or drops in frames or graphics due to bad internet. Like mine is normally fine, around 120 down, but it's not perfect. I much prefer the download system.
(You might be able to do that with PSNow, I haven't delved too deep into the service honestly)
(You might be able to do that with PSNow, I haven't delved too deep into the service honestly)
Have anyone made a comparison of Sony 1st party & MS 1st party availability (and their critical reception) across these services?
You would also have to account for 3rd parties and how fresh the games are.
There is not a lot of new games on games on PSNOW.
Simply put the streaming service isn't good enough to play a lot of games, even on a decent connection
The collection of games that are available to downloads feels like a collection of games that if I really wanted to play I could find for a buck or two in a sale.
The collection of games that are available to downloads feels like a collection of games that if I really wanted to play I could find for a buck or two in a sale.
9 months to 1 year has been my calculation to when they could start putting their first party games on the service. It's been five months now and spider-man just got a permanent price drop. If we assume another 4-5 months for another $20 drop, it would put it at the cost of one month of psnow and the time would be 10 months. Still let's people who want to play it right away get it, they still make their big bulk up front and then as sales slow down they might get those people that are patient and can wait in the tail end
I don't get the obsession with having Sony's tentpole titles on this day 1 like Microsoft does
they're very different games, Sony hasn't embraced GaaS like Microsoft has so what would they gain from doing this? it'd only be lost sales with no micro transactions to make up for it
unless the people advocating this want Sony to just become another GaaS studio which as a fan I'd fervently oppose
they're very different games, Sony hasn't embraced GaaS like Microsoft has so what would they gain from doing this? it'd only be lost sales with no micro transactions to make up for it
unless the people advocating this want Sony to just become another GaaS studio which as a fan I'd fervently oppose
I don't think I understand the issue of having games from Plus on Now. You don't have to have Plus with Now? You might not have had Now when you sign up?
Do games that were on GwG not count either?
It's a weird line of thought to me.
Do games that were on GwG not count either?
It's a weird line of thought to me.
Sonic Generations is a horrible game to test.
Console version of that game was unplayable to me. PC version at 60fps is fantastic.
Console version of that game was unplayable to me. PC version at 60fps is fantastic.
Yeah, seems like this is the major point everyone makes about Game Pass vs PS Now.
I can't imagine Sony putting those games on PS Now in the first few years of existence because they're such high quality that people will be willing to pay full price for them. That just isn't the same right now on the other side of the field.
If Microsoft starts delivering games like they did back in the 360 era and they're still on Game Pass day and date, then hot damn, that's an AMAZING value proposition that can't be denied.
As of now, it's more of a theoretical value proposition for someone like me.
No, but PS Now would be far more compelling if Sony's major first party titles came to PS Now, say, a year after their original launch. It's not like Sony first-party titles have exceptional legs, anyway.
I think people complaining about the content of PS NOW are not necessarily demanding Sony first party games. I think they just want more current gen AAA games to play with, period. The real issue is not the lack of PS exclusives, rather, the real issue the lack of AAAs.
Complaining about the overlap between Now and Plus games is pretty weird. First because the same problem exists for Games with Gold and Gamepass to no less of a degree, and second because Sony's library of both are significantly larger than the comparable services on Xbox. My current, personal PS Plus library alone includes well over twice as many games as Gamepass offers, for example. Second, because PS Plus isn't required for multiplayer of PS Now games like Gold is for Gamepass.
Really, unlimited access to over 700 games for $99/year is shockingly expensive?
There are more games on PS Now that you can download and play locally than there are in the Gamepass library. It's like ~275 games at this point.
Really, unlimited access to over 700 games for $99/year is shockingly expensive?
There are more games on PS Now that you can download and play locally than there are in the Gamepass library. It's like ~275 games at this point.
This article is pretty off base really. It works pretty well and the selection is decent just not great.
They wouldn't need 12 single player AAA games per year because most people don't finish a game per month, and not every game will appeal to all subscribers obviously.
If it is priced at roughly the cost of two full priced games per year (similar to what Game Pass is) then it should be profitable on average.
But that cost of 2 games per year had to cover a whole lot more than the cost of game development. they had to pay hundreds of third party game on their service as well. I can't imagine paying third party to put hundreds of games on subscription service is cheap. there's a reason why netflix switch their focus to original content, because putting 3rd party content is getting too expensive. at least that's what I hear before.
Sure, but my comment was more in response to the need to have 12 AAA first party games per year to keep people subscribed which isn't really the case as almost no one would be able to play each new game as it came out.
The model of 1st part early releases and delayed third party seems to mitigate the cost of the service as those games are far less valuable to the publisher when they are a year old or more.
I mean he is not wrong here. Although mildly inflammatory. I've used the aervice a number of times and never really had an issue. Some of the games were platformers like rachet and clank. As long as you have a decent connection it's fine for playing old gamea. It waa also a service Sony started not for BC but to get in the game to have a finger on the pulse of what is likely to be the future of gaming eventually.
Anyone thinking they should and would put AAA ps4 games on it day one has not been paying attention and is smoking some good stuff. I have a feeling nexf gen they will roll out full BC and the service will contjnue to evolve with more title allowing for download.
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There seems to be an abundance of articles detailing the things Sony is doing wrong and very few if any on what they are doing right. This set against the fact they have been so successful this generation in selling hardware and producing great games in support, comes off as odd and rather lopsided given the reality of this generation.
I mean, I don't agree with everything this article says, but you can clearly point to everything Sony has done with PS Now as a case study in how to get a subscription service wrong until recent history.
I definitely don't agree with the premise that PSNow has not improved since it launched wrt streaming quality. I think that's kind of going to be difficult to measure in any case. I feel like I steamed Way of the Warrior very early and it was unplayable whereas I played the PSP God of War games via PSNow last year and it was pretty great.
The only real criticism with PS Now that's super valid and not just someone's opinion is that it should be available worldwide. Whether that means they just do a cheaper download only option with just PS4 games or something.
You can argue game lineups vs Game Pass all you want but there truth is everyone has different tastes in games.
Also PS Now has come a long way since the original beta. They went from hour/daily rentals to a subscription model. Latency has also been improved in the past year.
In the future I would like to see 1080p streams rather than being stuck to 720p.
You can argue game lineups vs Game Pass all you want but there truth is everyone has different tastes in games.
Also PS Now has come a long way since the original beta. They went from hour/daily rentals to a subscription model. Latency has also been improved in the past year.
In the future I would like to see 1080p streams rather than being stuck to 720p.
pretty sure everyone rather sell 7 million digital, then retail, no repeat used games sales over and over, all profit.
My comment was more to do with the constant flow of these types of articles in general (though this one tries to be more even handed then most of the others)
There are many games at least there from each generation and some members of this board have found the streaming quality at least decent. This can be argued is a success given that it's the first offering of it's kind on home consoles. Sure Sony can do more with PS Now but they are the only one of the big three offering a streaming service and have been for years.
It will never be profitable with two or three single player AAA games per year because some people playing mostly single player games will probably subscribe only two or three months per year and for sure less profitable than sold the game(at retail and with 30% of digital sales). I think they will wait two to three years to sold a single player AAA game on PSNow. A good idea is offer into the PSNow an episode of a franchise a few months before release of the next episode.
It is the same for Blockbuster movie on Netflix no release day one.
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I don't remember PS3 games being laggy when I played them on a PS3 console. I played 3D Dot Game Heros, Little Big Planet, Ratchet and Clank (I don't remember which one), Uncharted 1, Uncharted 2 and Valkyria Chronicles. I also played a few downloadable games.
