Update: Well, it looks like Sony has mucked up with its very own corporate strategy meeting slides. PlayStation Now actually already had one million subscribers just eight months ago, meaning that today's total of 2.2 million is better growth than the Japanese giant has recorded.
Original Story: The days of Sony's PlayStation Now streaming service feeling like an option the Japanese giant had almost forgotten about are long behind us. Ever since cutting the price of a subscription and enhancing the sort of games on offer, PS Now has gone from strength to strength. And that can now be reflected in the total number of users who have picked up a subscription. It recorded more than 2.2 million subscribers at the end of April 2020, a statistic which more than doubles the count from this time last year.
Sony recorded roughly 700,000 subscribers at the end of March 2018, which increased to a little over one million 12 months later. The Japanese giant credits the significant increase in users to the sort of PlayStation 4 games it has begun to offer more recently. Marvel's Spider-Man, Horizon: Zero Dawn, and Persona 5 are just some of the titles which have been a part of the service in the past -- a major boost in quality which was traditionally reserved for older titles. Right now, you could play Rainbow Six: Siege, The Evil Within 2, and Just Cause 4 and hundreds of other games for just £8.99 a month.
Are you one of those 2.2 million PlayStation Now subscribers? Are you enjoying the service and the games it has to offer? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
[source sony.net, via twitter.com]
Comments 32
PSNOW is not on my rader yet. Need to see how it works with ps5 before I subscribe to it
I'm really tempted by Playstation Now, what puts me off is that I like to collect games (hard copies) so would still pre-order major titles for the collection hence would it be worth the money!?! Do they have new indies on there like the recent Huntdown? And do they have any VR titles available?
@Mostik pretty sure there is a free trial, check it out!
@Mostik @Ridwaano I bought 1 month ps now. It's worth it to blast through 20-30 games if you have free time.
@ellsworth004 @themcnoisy Very good point I should give the trial a go, being in lock down I could very well get through quite a few games. Cheers folks
I recently subscribed the other week when it was on offer and definitely think it was worth the money and plan to keep it now.
I don’t have the best of internet and was surprised with how well the PS3 games have worked for me.
Had the odd rare lag spike but most time I can play for hours with no issues and all the PS4 games are downloadable so no issues with any them at all.
Yea I got a 3month sub to see if it's worth it, atm for me personally it's not. Only reason is I have most of the games like Spiderman, hzd etc. But if you haven't been able to buy a lot of games then it's defo worth it for the price of one game you get access to all those games for a whole year so depending on how much games you buy I'd say
@LiamCroft Apparently Sony's PS NOW slide about MAU was wrong in some area, because they announced 700K subs in April 2019 and for September 2019 it was increased to 1M subs and now they reached to 2.2M subs...
you also covered these news too!
I've been subscribed to PlayStation now for the last few months while in lock down, and been enjoying games that I wouldn't have overwise. I played doom and currently finishing control, I downloaded just cause 4 too but yet to play it.
PSNow is great if you dont mind the lag, video compression artifacts and want to pay a second time for PS3 games you already own.
It may seem petty but playing PSNow is like playing a PS4 game from inside a burlap sack.
I subscribe to the other one which is still much better value, if you're new to Playstation then I can see the attraction but as is I'm not convinced and the PS1/PS2 selection is poor
Had enough after the 1 week free trial, because of much the same as stated above. It gets stale too fast.
most games i want to play i already own, not paying to play my ps3 games on ps4 when the ps3 plays them better. for those ps4 games i do want to try and play i will subscribe for a odd month but not worth a full sub from me. if you bought a ps3 game digitally in the past they should let you stream it at no extra cost.
It’s pretty good these day, especially if you buy a year outright. I still like the streaming too.
do you also need ps+ to play online?
I would actually take PSNow over PS+ at the moment.
I’ve never found any real issues with streaming...just completed Tomb Raider like this.
Currently downloaded and playing Evil Within.
Excellent service for less than a fiver a month!!
For those new to Playstation
Excellent deal.
Those who have had a playstation the past 3-5 years
Not so much.
If you weren't able to download ps4 games it would be a no go for me as with Sony bottle necking bandwiths because of covid-19 the quality is a bit dodgy when it comes to streaming. So I stream games just to try them out and then download them if I want to play them any longer. I just completed Control on it so have got my money's worth already. I doubt I will stay subbed to it for any longer than say 3 months as there is not too much on there that interests me. They really need to have more recent games on there to keep me subbed.
I'd subscribed to this service for 2 months for my 12-year-old son. He played games like crazy and didn't bug me much about anything. It was a glorious time lol.
Funnily enough I went through the library yesterday & downloaded like 8 games including Control & Shadow of the Tomb Raider.
Had Tomb Raider in my basket like 3 or 4 times but luckily held off this past month.
Check out the library everyone!
I really think sony should open up psnow worldwide like psplus and make 3 different online options, $20 for cloudsave and psn discount only, $40 for online and free game (make it one AAA and one indies every month with minimum 70 metacritic scores for the games), and $60 for psnow streaming (online play included and support download for non-ps3 games).
There's loads of classic PS3/PS2 games that aren't on there. I thought it was a very disappointing selection of games to be honest.
@zebric21 - No, you can play the MP games online with just a PSNow sub.
Entrenched fanboys desperate to create an opposition to something they know is succeeding their console empire... Streaming is coming kids. But PlayStation Now ain't it... It never was.
Sony do not have the server power to compete in the game streaming market. I've used it and I can see why you all assume Streaming = Latency too... yikes... but the problem was the quality of the platform not the technology itself.
At best PlayStation now gives you a whole bunch of old games you probably won't even play for a small monthly fee. It costs. There is no free tier.
They most certainly will not be including PlayStation 5 games on there either.
I wonder how Stadia numbers are in comparison? 🤔
@Mostic
There s a huge collection of ps4, ps2 and psn games to download all year long for the price of one game.
So far This year I have played uncharted lost legacy, Control, shadow of the tomb raider, evil within 2, just cause 4, wolfenstein 2, F1 2019..etc.
To me, psnow is a much better value than Ps+ which I have canceled since I am not playing online very much.
Signed up on Sunday funnily enough. Got a year's subscription from Shopto for £39.85.
Pretty good value so far
@zebric21 No. You can play the PS Now games online without an additional PS Plus subscription. That's about the only advantage it has over Gamepass.
I've had PS Now for almost six months. It's ok. It's not great and far from perfect, but it's ok. When my Plus subscription lapsed in January I didn't think I was getting good value any more so didn't renew it. Instead I spent £45 on a year of PS Now. Its good that it has some newer games on it now, but it's still not as good as Gamepass with day 1 releases. It's got a long way to go, but it's better than it was. There are not enough games being added monthly, so if you don't like what's been added you're stuck waiting a month for new ones. The PS3 streaming is very hit and miss. I have a 150mb connection and sometimes it works well and sometimes it's literally unplayable with the lag and dropped frames. It's a hard recommend really, it's ok, but it could be so much better.
I've had my ps now for about 7 months. Used it twice and doubled up my subscription at the point of sale.
Can't see me renewing it.. Shame but the library is full of stuff I already have.
I bought it, $60 /12 months is a good enough deal for me to take a chance on.
I took a year sub on now and don't regret it one bit. I took it just at the right time too, the month control came out! and the games have been pretty good since. Plus finding hidden gems like Sniper has been a treat. Well worth the money, I found a discounted code for like £37 for the year. My only gripe, you can never find which games are going to be released untill the day normally. Or they do the odd blog, it's inconsistent and needs addressing BUT overall well worth the money.
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