There’s a reason the Nintendo Switch is so popular: it’s bleedin’ convenient. Being able to take the console out of its dock so that you can enjoy your games anywhere is a killer feature, and it’s why the device is lighting up the hardware charts. See, I’ve been in the unfortunate position of moving to a new house, and ordering a new television from Amazon wasn’t an immediate priority. But when I finally did get around to it, I wasn’t counting on the retailer losing my parcel – exactly how you misplace a TV is beyond me.
Here’s the thing: I spent almost a month unable to play my PS4. That may not sound like a particularly long time, but when it’s your primary hobby, there are only so many Netflix shows you can stomach. Initially I attempted to solve my predicament by using PlayStation VR’s trusty cinematic mode; I just strapped the headset to my face and used it as a makeshift screen. But, honestly, I felt extremely self-conscious and, frankly, anti-social submerging myself in an experience no one else could see. And, y’know, the resolution is really bad.
I was on the verge of giving up, but then I remembered that I have an active PlayStation Now subscription and the Internet was already setup. While I’ve spent a few hours streaming games to try out the technology, I’ve obviously never used it as my primary source of entertainment. So, I downloaded the application to my laptop, plugged in my dusty DualShock 4, and got to work. This was going to be an interesting experiment for me.
I’m not going to lie, there were times where I forgot I was streaming to begin with. I was still in the midst of moving to a new house, so I initially picked something light to play: Treasures of Montezuma 4. Look, don’t judge me – I know I could have played that game on my phone, but that wouldn’t have earned me any Trophies, would it? The experience, honestly, was flawless – everything looked and responded exactly as I expected. Streaming works?
As time went on, though, I started to yearn for a meatier experience – the kind of thing I’d be playing on my console had Amazon not decided to drop my new TV in the ocean. I’d wanted to play Vampyr for a while, and my experience with PS Now had been so good that I decided to boot it up. This game, with its moody atmosphere, highlighted the macroblocking much worse than Treasures of Montezuma 4 – but I was still able to appreciate its gothic interpretation of London. More impressively, its Destiny 2-esque cursor-based menus felt very responsive – a good start.
Over the course of the next week or so I spent an hour or so streaming Vampyr each night, and these are the conclusions I came to while playing a full-length game through PS Now:
The thing is, now that Amazon has delivered my TV, I’m back to playing games natively on my PS4 Pro console. I’ve downloaded Vampyr and continued playing it natively on the console – pulling my save from the PlayStation Plus cloud and picking up where I left off with PS Now. You could argue that this proves streaming is not ready for the primetime, as I was swift to ditch it as soon as I was able to play natively; I think there’s truth to that.
But it’s also important to note that if my TV would have, somehow, got lost again – well, I would have continued to play the dark open world title on my laptop. And I think that says a lot about where we’re at with streaming: it really does work, and it does have some advantages over native gameplay these days. I’m not saying that PS Now is going to replace the traditional method of play – god no. But as an alternative means of entertainment, when I needed it – yeah, it's fine.
Have you tried to play any meatier games through streaming with PS Now? How was your experience? Buffer away in the comments section below.
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Comments 27
Wait....
Why did you use your old tv or am I missing something?
Wasn’t worth moving it when I thought Amazon would deliver promptly.
remote play does the same thing (play via laptop) and you don't need a subscription to use that service 😉 psvr cinematic mode is not half bad plus you could have played some vr games too, the fact that you don't need a tv is a plus for me as the tv is occupied by other people in my place 99% of the time lol.
Ps now is good, fair enough, but if you had games you wanted to play you could have turned on your PS4 and used remote play on your laptop. Def better than the vr approach
On the subject of ps now though, I genuinely think it would be a great portable service if there was an iOS and android app.
@huyi - i was thinking the same thing, the remote play app on laptop would have been a better experience than psnow, plus you can play anything in your library, not just what happens to be rentable on psnow.
of course the main problem (for me) with the remote play app is that it's a real fudge to get it to work on windows 7.
@get2sammyb Very nice article, all real-life gamer, no fanboi.
I bought my son 1 month of PS Now for Hannukah for $10 b/c he's played all of the Uncharted games except Lost Legacy, which as you're probably aware comes to the service in a couple of days. And Overcooked 2 which everybody keeps talking about but I have no idea what it is so we'll probably check it out.
https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2019/12/horizon_zero_dawn_uncharted_the_lost_legacy_and_more_coming_to_playstation_now_in_january
He's streamed before, he has a PS TV hooked up to his PC monitor and he's played HZD on it, but not PS Now. I was going to tell him he can play Now on PS TV but then I remembered PS Now also works on PC, so he'll probably check out both to see which works better, options are good.
I got my other son 3 months of Xbox Gamepass Gold Ultimate for $1 - even though we don't have an Xbox, we used to so he had account. There are a bunch of nice games on there he's been playing, Bloodstained, Dead Cells, Lucky, Guacameelee 2. I know it's normally $15 per month, so $5 more per month than PS Now, but the game selection probably make sit worth it. He's also signed up for 5 cents a day renewal starting in March when Ori 2 Will 'O the Wisp releases but I'm guessing they rescind that offer by then. It was only available for about 24 hours around Black Friday and the consensus is that it was probably a mistake, meant to be 50 cents a day, not 5. We'll see.
Between PS Now and Xbox GP we can game A LOT of hours without not only a TV, but w/o a console as well. No game ownership, all rentals, but the future is Netflix and Disney+ so I don't think the millennials know from ownership.
Happy New Year!! That's 1 holiday I know we have in common. So, party at your place?
@rjejr I might be wrong but didn’t think you could use PSNow on PSTV as the vita app was discontinued.
I still use my Vita to remote play, it's a shame how Sony just abandoned that thing.
@Robinsad Wow really? How messed up is Sony w/ that PS TV piece of junk? Didn't think they could possibly screw it up worse than it already was - I only bought it for $28 clearance at Target for the PS4 streaming - but if PCs can play PS Now but PS TV can't, just wow.
Holy crud, they killed it off nearly 3 years ago. I should demand my $28 back. What a useless piece of garbage. And I didn't even realize they killed off PS3 support, that how I first signed up for PS Now years ago, and it's the system I use in my bedroom for streaming. Haven't gamed on it in awhile though, have used it for the occasional DVD borrowed from the local public library so I've gotten my moneys worth out of it at least.
https://www.polygon.com/2017/2/15/14627922/playstation-now-discontinued-ps3-vita-tv
Good thing PS Now is on PC. I hope his PC can handle it, no video card, just what came on the board, it's a homework PC, no gaming. Maybe I'll go set it up later, now the suspense is killing me. Oh, first I need to create him a new account, he's only 17 and I've read PS Now won't even work on those accounts, people have lost their codes trying. So he's aging 9 months today. Oh and his current account is in London but we're in the US, I'm guessing that wouldn't have worked well either. Better get to work.
Thank you for the warning.
Looks like most of the info is here from 3 months ago so I'm posting the link for anyone else curios.
https://blog.us.playstation.com/2019/10/01/playstation-now-everything-you-need-to-know/
This Bottlenecking is a massive problem be it on a low mebabites a sec or ultra megabites a sec...........it was so massive I stopped using Play Now after a couple of hours.
As an alternative yes Sammy it sort of does the job but given the choice of seamless uninterupted gameplay I know what I would choose.
I'm having fun downloading PS4 and PS2 games and playing them, but the fuzzy resolution during streaming kinda irks me a little bit, especially since the PS3 games are stream only.
Not exactly related but one of the best things about my PS4 right now is being able to connect to my job’s super hi-speed connection and playing ESO over Remote Play.
Not sure why it took a month for the issue to be resolved. Whenever I have had issues with Amazon which is rarely they have rsent the item within days.
You guys are always promoting Amazon yet they proviide you with bad service.
Regarding PS Now I just do not see it as good value or content compared to other services
Our internet here in Germany is still in it’s Stone Age. Streaming isn’t an option, sadly. And it surely won’t be for years to come.
@hotukdeals I think in this story Sony is preffered to Amazon as promoting goes.
I started playing Monster Hunter World again because of Iceborne and because I'm trying to catch up, it gets really complicated to always be able to play especially during Christmas and New Year. So, I downloaded Remote Play for my phone, cause I was almost certain I wouldn't be home to play.
Left my PS4 on and then tested the streaming service, what a feature. The future is now thanks to Science. Quite impressed to be honest. Not perfect, but certainly good enough with lots of room for improvement.
No tv so how did u play ps now
I picked up PS Now when it dropped to $59.99 for a year, the price of one game. The only game I tried is Lemmings nostalgia got me. It played great the little I played of it. Im still busy playing my back log of purchased PS4 games like Death Stranding. There is a ton of games on the service I never played. For $5 a month even If I only play one game a month it worth it to me.
Have you not heard of Remote Play? You can simply stream from PS4 to PC using an app that's been available for Windows and Mac OS since 2016. The advantage of a PS Now subscription is that you don't need a PS4 at all - you can just stream PS4 games to your PC from the internet - but as you already had the console there was no need to pay for the subscription. If you were aware of this it seems odd that you wouldn't mention it and compare methods in your article, and if you weren't aware...
Stadia rescued me under similar circumstances. Say what you will about the selection and the features, when it comes to boots-on-the-ground gameplay the tech works great.
I'll just play Vampyr on the Switch
I just got a subscription to PS Now for Christmas, and it’s all I’ve been playing. The selection isn’t filled with all the games you really, really want, but the games I’ve played have been a lot of fun. Mostly playing through PS3 games, but the PS4 games I’ved tried have worked pretty slick. And, I’d never played a Silent Hill game before, so that’s what I’m getting into now—remastered Silent Hill 2!
@jgrangervikings1 to me the ps3 games are the stars of ps now, wish they would pay some attention to that side of it rather than just the headline PS4 games
The benefits of game streaming are huge imo.
Tried PSnow years ago on PS4 when I first got a subscription. Was damn good even back then. Not perfect but more than playable.
I prefer physical but if some of you don't care about that, PSnow is the way go to aside from just straight buying a digital copy.
@get2sammyb Very interesting article Sammy. But I have to ask why didn't you just use the remote play app on your laptop and play your purchased games that way?? Or was your PS4 packed away?
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