Sony’s PlayStation Now may just be starting off, but it’s without a doubt one helluva idea that surely takes the next big step in to the next generation of console gaming. And it seems like Sony decided to take it a step further to discuss the service in detail with a game stream via the same.
First off, lest you have been living under a rock all this while, PlayStation Now is Sony’s newest Gaikai-based cloud like service that will offer classic old-school PlayStation 2 and 3 games for the PS4, and, in time, for the PS Vita, smartphones, tablets, and even TV sets (of certain brands).
Recently, Sony SCEA social media manager Sid Shuman did a hands-on with the new service in order to familiarize fans and users about what the service is actually about.
He stated that when at CES 2014, the gaming media “went hands-on with PS Now across two devices, a 2014 BRAVIA TV and a PS Vita,” with the test drive for the same featuring four titles — Beyond: Two Souls, God of War: Ascension, The Last of Us, and Puppeteer, the experience involving the service has been encouraging for the company.
“PS Now’s advantage lies into its immediacy and access; the ability to hop easily between multiple games across a host of devices without downloading huge files or swapping Blu-ray discs represents a major evolution of the medium,” Shuman stated.
As an example, Shuman talked about how he dug deep into the service when he tested The Last of Us on the BRAVIA. He stated: “In the test demo I played on both the BRAVIA and PS Vita, gameplay latency was a non-issue. I had no trouble maneuvering the camera, aiming at enemies, or fending off incoming attacks.”
“In fact, after a few minutes of play I forgot that I was ‘streaming a game’ — I was just getting absorbed in playing The Last of Us. I also fired up Puppeteer and God of War: Ascension, and the experience was similarly convincing,” he added.
However, as expected, he also confirmed that “as with all bandwidth-intensive streaming content,” the player’s experience with PS Now will eventually depend on the overall quality of the broadband internet connection the player is currently subscribed to.
“The PS Now team is currently estimating that a 5 mbps connection will provide a good experience for most game, and they’ll be gathering user feedback during the closed beta before announcing more details,” Shuman concluded.
We are no experts here but while the above mentioned speed requirement for the internet is not something that huge, but it will be interesting to see how the company, itself, handles the load it’s expected to face when the service is fully up and running.
