PS Now vs. the real deal

[Mr.Branding]

Are you looking specifically for new copies? Because CEX has them relatively cheap (I know they can be a shitshow though). Besides, El Shaddai is not on the service, so you'd better check any other titles that you want for availability.

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As I have a US PSN account, I actually did find El Shaddai on PS Now.

Playing the long game with eBay will probably be your best option then. Keep an eye on listings for long enough and you're bound to run across a copy that is cheaper than average.

Also, this is probably the best time to buy games for that generation. We're in that part of the cycle where there are a lot of games out there for good prices from people offloading their collections from last-gen, but before the kids that grew up playing those games get bitten by the nostalgia bug and have the income to feed into it, causing the prices to start shooting up.

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It sucks that we have 3 similar services to eBay/amazon in my country (Romania) but rare, obscure games that I like can't be found ever. That was my best option to find them pretty cheap, and I've been playing the waiting game for years but to no success.
I wanted something intermezzo before the big boys I've mentioned launch, and with the eBay delivery times, prices and hooking everything up just seems too much at the moment for my limited free time.

I guess I'll bite for one month PS Now sub and see how that goes as my internet is pretty ace.

 

[NewDust]

As I have a US PSN account, I actually did find El Shaddai on PS Now.
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Ah, thought you were from UK. But seeing as you are from Romania... I wouldn't recommend a PS Now subscription from the US if you want to use it mostly as a streaming service. Latency and stability will not be favorable by such a long distance. At best try it out for a month first.

 

[Pankratous]

I'll subscribe to PS Now immediately when they add first party games day one like Game Pass. Till then, nah.

 

[Deleted member 16365]

I've seen and heard good things, but the price is a turn off. I got a year of Game Pass for the price of one game that I was going to buy anyway (Crackdown 3) and I don't see myself paying the price of admission for PS Now until they change it from older games. Playing PS2 games is nice, but not the draw for me.

 

[Araujo]

i keep seeing this pop in and out in discussion with people either saying it's shit or it's great.

Has anybody verified what speeds do people have when they use PsNow? How about data caps? How those play in after a month of use?

I travel with my console and often i do'nt have internet access... so PsNOW is a non issue with me. But even if i did had the internet for it... my Internet access even though it's unlimited Data caps, is 20 down / 10 up which is not really all that great.

It seems to me to be incredibly close minded to celebrate a service that only properly serves a small fraction of a consumer base. It sure as hell is not a good sales point if after launch people start shitting on it because their data caps went to shit or that they lost their game stream due to their internet not being fantastic.

We somehow went from wanting to have a fully functioning Offline console to celebrating a future where some desire to be streaming games nonstop with their top of the line fiber connections that less than 1% of people who actually buy the consoles even have.

Reminds me of all the people going crazy about "4k gaming" while not having 4k monitors or TV's at all.

 

[Van Bur3n]

Paying for that shit is laughable.

 

[Ænima]

Since PS Now is still not available in my contry, my only option is "Nay", cuz Sony still dont even let me try it. Hope next gen PS Now finnaly expands to the contriest that is still missing.

 

[Crayon]

Do a trial to see if your connection is good. If it is, stuff plays and looks pretty good. I wouldn't play a fighting game or hard action like Ninja gaiden on it. For everything else though, it's great.

 

[Mr.Branding]

So I subbed for one month to test things out and played 5 chapters of Asura's Wrath without any major hiccups or latency especially considering that I am in Eu and the servers are probably in the Us.
I'll try and finish a couple of games this month but will also test some NG just to see if I can manage.

 

[defaltoption]

I'm a real thing person, I can't have my games be dependent on how strong the internet connection at that moment, especially since I live in a home full of other people who will also be on the same internet either playing their own games or streaming movies or music. I will always opt for a full digital download or disc no matter what when given the option.

 

[Burt]

I did a month for $10 over the holidays and got into a lot of stuff. GOW3 Remastered was basically butter. Played through TLOU, but it was a little rough. Gave Bloodborne a try, but it was rough too. Those might be inherent 30fps problems and not streaming quality problems, though. Never played a Soulsborne at sub-60 so it's hard to discount it being the technical issues of the game itself. Messed around with some other stuff, and it mostly seemed fine. Biggest problem was some games not supporting a non-Dualshock at all, and PS Now's PC search interface being garbage.

Still, for someone who hasn't had a Sony system since PS2, it's a pretty good deal. I dunno about $20 a month, but I wouldn't have regretted getting 3 months for $30 during the sale.

 

[Huey]

The no download Ps3 to HDD is a major turnoff for me. Games like Ninja Gaiden require pretty precise inputs and I'd hate it to see artifacting or lag while playing.

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Even with the other factors you listed OP, this is a deal breaker for you. I had the exact same reluctance when I tried it and it was 100% confirmed. It's not terrible at all - but the visuals are degraded and their is going to be input lag added. I think it's not a great way to experience most games, even if you've played them before.

The one exception would be if you have live somewhere with a gig fibre connection - very possible you could see a pretty close facsimile. For my part even with a 150mpbs connection, it's not up to snuff.

 

[Mr.Branding]

Even with the other factors you listed OP, this is a deal breaker for you. I had the exact same reluctance when I tried it and it was 100% confirmed. It's not terrible at all - but the visuals are degraded and their is going to be input lag added. I think it's not a great way to experience most games, even if you've played them before.

The one exception would be if you have live somewhere with a gig fibre connection - very possible you could see a pretty close facsimile. For my part even with a 150mpbs connection, it's not up to snuff.

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You're right. Even if my country is "notorious" for very high-speed internet being that I'm in Europe and the servers are in US must mean something. I'm usually not the guy to care about framerates and super clean image quality THAT much, and if it doesn't disrupt my gameplay session, it's all good.

Besides the games I've mentioned in the OP, I really want to give the Ninja Gaiden games another go because I really really enjoy them and even if I own them all on my PS3, setting that up right now is not something I see myself doing.
I barely have one hour per night to play, and since becoming a parent, some of my gaming habits have changed.

I was really into collecting and owning every game and amassed quite the Ps2 and Ps3 collections but with time I kind of realised that I rarely replay games and they just take up space under the TV.
Was also pretty against digital games, but with this generation, I've welcomed it with both arms, my Vita and Ps4 being mainly digital machines.

Never wanted to hear about game streaming some time ago, deeming it the end of traditional gaming, but to be honest, for what it's worth, I had a blast last night playing Asura's Wrath. Sure, it might not have been the same experience as the real disc game and 20$ per month is something but my time is more important than money; by the time the game would have arrived at my place, DMC V was already being released and I wouldn't have even cared about Asura.

I'm sure they will iron out the kinks by next generation and this will be a thing. I'll see how this month goes and I'll update this once it's over.

 

[Vexii]

It's easily over 80ms of additional lag.

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Posted a couple of tweets and I'd love some input on them here.


Not the most scientific method ever, but it seems to me to be pretty reasonable?

 

[WhtR88t]

I got a promotion for PSNow in my inbox for 12 months at $9.99 a month. I signed up for the 7 day trial was was pleasantly surprised at the performance. Streaming is completely playable and the ability to download is a nice touch. I actually hope PS5 games work this way– stream the immediately game while the local version downloads.

Hopefully with the backwards compatibility stuff on the PS5, they'll allow you to download PS3 games like they do for PS2/4.

 

[Bishop89]

It also doesn't help that the games I want are pretty rare, like Puppeteer, El Shaddai, Asura's Wrath, etc.

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Can't you just buy these on PSN?

 

[Deleted member 5159]

20 bucks a month? lol, ok sony.

 

[MazeHaze]

Posted a couple of tweets and I'd love some input on them here.


Not the most scientific method ever, but it seems to me to be pretty reasonable?

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Digital foundry actually did a full analysis and found an average of 60-70ms.

So definitely technically "playable" if your tv has low input lag already. If your sensitive to it at all/and or used to say, less than 40ms total it's a deal breaker. My tv has 20ms of latency, feels snappy and great, even with a mouse and keyboard imo. Add in lag from PSnow and we're at 80-90ms of total latency, which feels like poopy dog butts to me. I played a little of RDR and Sonic Generations on a 100mb connection to test it out and I couldn't stand it. That much lag gives me a headache.

 

[vivftp]

Finally signed up for the 7 day free trial and spent a few hours jumping around various games to test the streaming. So far no noticeable lag and not a single stutter. I ran some tests with Red Dead, Sonic Generations, Motorstorm Apocalypse, Street Fighter 2, Comix Zone and Gravity Rush. Other than the graphics downgrade by the stream being 720p it was perfect. Controls were very snappy and I was intentionally trying to dart about quickly to try and create a situation where I might notice some lag.

My internet connection is gigabit download with 30 megabit upload and I'm in Toronto. Gonna play around a lot more once I finish off replaying TLOU but so far I'm impressed! If they can get the streaming quality to 1080p then I think it'll be perfect.

 

[Sonicfan059]

PS Now is great, works like a charm for me. However I generally would prefer physical hardware and software so it's not just an extended rental.

At $99 a year it comes out to $8.25 a month which is tremendous value.

 

[JusDoIt]

Ain't there a free trial? Why don't you try the free trial?

 

[Heromanz]

I just want the more PS4 games

 

[Mesoian]

Now that you can download games, sure.

But their streaming options have been found lacking. Everything I wanted to play was basically untenable when I had the trial.

 

[Vexii]

Digital foundry actually did a full analysis and found an average of 60-70ms.

So definitely technically "playable" if your tv has low input lag already. If your sensitive to it at all/and or used to say, less than 40ms total it's a deal breaker. My tv has 20ms of latency, feels snappy and great, even with a mouse and keyboard imo. Add in lag from PSnow and we're at 80-90ms of total latency, which feels like poopy dog butts to me. I played a little of RDR and Sonic Generations on a 100mb connection to test it out and I couldn't stand it. That much lag gives me a headache.

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Haha I actually didn't know that DF covered it which shouldn't be surprising for me. If i miscounted and it's actually 9 or 10 frames of lag that would line up perfectly but it definitely isn't any worst than that.

Granted it's mostly MGS I've tested it with. Haven't tried any PS4 games yet but I'm really impressed with it. It could be that I'm just fortunate where I'm located in comparison to the servers.

 

[ADS]

Quality is adequate, but not great. Fast moving scenes in particular suffer heavily.

More importantly, PS Now adds at least 60 ms of latency. I find this totally unplayable, but YMMV, it all depends how much you care.

 

[MazeHaze]

Haha I actually didn't know that DF covered it which shouldn't be surprising for me. If i miscounted and it's actually 9 or 10 frames of lag that would line up perfectly but it definitely isn't any worst than that.

Granted it's mostly MGS I've tested it with. Haven't tried any PS4 games yet but I'm really impressed with it. It could be that I'm just fortunate where I'm located in comparison to the servers.

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It definitely works, but that much lag isn't acceptable for a lot of people. If it was cheap I guess it would make sense for people on a budget, but it's super expensive and most of those games can be bought to play locally for next to nothing. I live around the cleveland area so I would assume I'm pinging servers in columbus, chicago, or ny and that should be plenty close for the maximum performance

 

[Mr.Branding]

Can't you just buy these on PSN?

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From my knowledge, only Puppeteer is in the store. And also, play them on...? That's the thing, the hassle of setting up the old consoles.

Ain't there a free trial? Why don't you try the free trial?

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Explained on the first page.

In other news, after finishing Asura's Wrath, I have moved on to Puppeteer. Still works great for me, and I'm pretty pleased with the selection of games I still have in my list. With a bit more love from Sony, this could change more minds about game streaming.

 

[Jawbreaker]

Any added latency is a dealbreaker for me. Native or bust.

 

[mxbison]

Tried the free trial because my nephew wanted to play Lego games. It stuttered from time to time and still felt a littly laggy on my 50mbps connection.

There are some nice dowloadable PS4 games, could be worth it for a month if you have enough time to complete a couple of games. A longer running subscription is definitely not worth it at that price.

Nay.

 

[Booya_base]

Just wanted to reply to say your tastr is impeccable - the 2 games I have got for PS3 recently? El Shaddai and Asuras Wrath

 

[Mr.Branding]

Just wanted to reply to say your tastr is impeccable - the 2 games I have got for PS3 recently? El Shaddai and Asuras Wrath

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Thanks mate. I'm a HUGE character action game aficionado and those two were the only ones I didn't have the chance to play on last gen.

Really sad that DMC V is the first true hack/slash game to be released on this gen.