Playstation Now Subscription Service Revealed

Just saw a post on the Playstation Blog detailing info about the Playstation Now subscription service including a teaser trailer that gives very little information but might hype people up I guess.

The service is starting January 13th on PS4 and will include over 100 PS3 games that subscribers will have full access to for the duration of their subscriptions. The subscription fees are $19.99 on a monthly plan or $44.99 on a three month plan. There will be a 7 day subscription when the service launches for PS4 owners who download the PS Now app. The title list is here: http://community.us.playstation.com/t5/PlayStation-Now/PlayStation-Now-Title-List/td-p/44466574. Also, for trophy hunters, the system does allow you to earn trophies for your Playstation account (I have earned some trophies over PS Now during the beta).

This is, in my opinion, the real reason PS Now is exciting and should exist. A Netflix-style (or, really, OnLive-style) subscription service for Playstation games is a very interesting idea. The idea of renting PS3 games at a variety of unusual prices didn't seem overly compelling to me and I was very disappointed when PS Now was released and that was the business model behind it, but we all knew that a subscription service was in the works. I think what we were all holding our breath for was the price.

I was an early adopter of OnLive and felt at the time that the technology was getting close and would represent a very interesting model as Internet speeds continued to increase. When Sony bought Gaikai and revealed that indeed they were planning to accommodate "backwards compatibility" through streaming of PS3 games, I thought it was a great idea (and, just as an aside, I think they should follow through with adding PSX and PS2 games in the future).

At my house, with 90-100Mbps speeds (thanks fiber for competing with Comcast in my area) in the SF Bay Area, the tech works brilliantly. It helps being right next to Playstation HQ in the US, I'm sure. As the rest of the country starts leaving the Stone Age of Internet Speeds and joins the rest of us in the future, the service will work wonderfully for even more people, I'm sure--even trying it at a house in another state with a 20Mbps connection, I was able to get lag-free gameplay albeit with less graphical fidelity. So basically, I think the technology is sound.

But ultimately, they had a make-or-break choice regarding the price scheme. They had to choose based on a couple of parameters:

1. The price needs to be within the ballpark of other similar subscription services.
2. They need a price point that drives people towards the longer term (three month) subscription.
3. They need a price point and library that doesn't sandbag the PS3 and PS3 title sales, but that also remains compelling for owners of any Playstation device.

To be honest, if I ask myself how much I think a service of this type is worth per month based on those factors, I settle on something in the range of $12-15 per month. I think about World of Warcraft subscriptions being about $15 on a monthly basis (slightly lower for longer plans). I think about Gamefly having a one-game-at-a-time subscription for $15.95 a month. I think about Netflix having a $7.99 a month one-movie-at-a-time subscription. I think about OnLive's PlayPack service with it's $9.95 a month subscription for 250 streamed games.

I think the Playstation Now fees are a tad higher than optimal, but not out of the question. At $15 a month, I think the value is there based on the library, particularly for people who haven't played most of those games. I look at it like this: I went to see a 3D matinee last week and got a small popcorn and a drink--cost me $20. That's a whole month of gaming with PS Now (or even more if you do the three month plan). With that in mind, I do think it's worth it if there are even a few games on there that I really want to play and don't already own.

That said, I probably won't be buying into PS Now myself for the forseeable future because of my "no new games" policy as I work through my backlog and because I've played or already own (mostly through PS Plus) a lot of the great games on the list that I'd actually want to play. Then again, I'm not necessarily the target customer at this juncture. My friends who bought a PS4 but never had a PS3, though, are prime targets.

Also, I think the whole service is pretty compelling if you're new to gaming because you could buy a Playstation TV and use it with Playstation Now as opposed to buying a PS3 and then needing to buy the games in question.

In my mind this also begs the question of why Sony couldn't sell the service for use on computers as well. Gaikai used to stream over browser windows--they could certainly facilitate streaming outside their hardware ecosystem if they wanted to.

I'm interested in seeing how this whole thing pans out. As a technophile, I love the potential of PS Now and services like it (I think there's an Xbox 360 one in the works as well over at Microsoft?). I look forward to a future where I could play my games anywhere without downloading them locally with a variety of devices. I'd like to live in a world where a subscription fee is all I really need to worry about--hell, that's how my TV and movies are delivered already (thanks Amazon Prime).

The list of games available on Playstation Now are kept updated here: http://community.us.playstation.com/t5/PlayStation-Now/PlayStation-Now-Title-List/td-p/44466574

It seems a bit steep, but once they add in some PS2 era RPGs, I'm positive I'll end up subscribing.

I don't know how I feel about paying $30 a month to Sony. I kind of feel like this should be a $15 service alone and a +$5 upgrade for PS Plus members. I know you're getting the entire library of PS3 titles but somehow $20 is a hard pill to swallow, more so for Playstation fans from the previous generation who weren't even used to paying that $10 for online.

Doesn't seem like a particularly great deal. If it had the entire back catalogue from PlayStation up to PS3 then I'd be in but for 100+ games? Nah mate.

The extraordinarily high pricing for individual game rentals through PlayStation Now suddenly makes a lot more sense from a business perspective. Sony is making the Now subscription a much more attractive option by setting the rental cost so high that it doesn't make sense not to subscribe.

Too much for me, but I'm pretty frugal compared to the average. It's especially expensive seeing as I rarely play more than a handful of games at a time and it feels like there would be a lot of months that I wouldn't play any back catalog games at all.

Feels like a value-add priced as a full service to me.

I was personally expecting the subscription plan to be "everything we have, but you just pay one flat rate," but instead, it's a separate catalog with some level of overlap with the rental catalog. I really hope this is just a temporary thing while they work out the third-party contracts, rather than their intended ongoing business plan.

Seems fair because I will just subscribe one month when a lot is out that I want to play, then play them all within a month and unsubscribe!

They probably know people will do this so that is why it's steep.

It's about 10 dollars too expensive

I'd rather just keep my older consoles, but for those who are new to the Playstation ecosystem, I suppose $19.99 for a month's worth of PS3 games doesn't sound half bad.

Yup. $10 a month is the most I'm willing to spend on any subscription.

If I looked through the catalogue and saw a bunch of PS games I wanted to blitz through in a month, it might make sense. PS Now is too expensive for me unless I plan to spend a lot of time playing games in a short period to get my money's worth and I don't want to have to pressure myself to play games.

Yeah that price isn't even close to what it would take to get me on board with PS Now, maybe at 10-12 a month I could swing it, but that's a lot of money. You could realistically buy one of those games if not more for 20 dollars every month and own a physical copy. Not to mention the lack of major PS3 titles.

This is a pretty cool addition, but yeah, it needs to be way cheaper. I've been generally disappointed in the lack of backwards compatibility consoles seem to want to offer, so this is a step in the right direction. I'm glad it exists, but at a price point of $240/year, you can pretty much straight-up buy a PS3 and enough games to last you a year. Here's hoping Microsoft offers something similar in the near future and undercuts them on price to start a price war and get this down to a reasonable level for all of us in the coming years (I'm also game at $10/month or less).

I just wish I could "buy" a game from Playstation Now. I don't like the idea of when a subscription ends, I no longer "own" a digital game.

This whole thing seems like a step backwards to me, not a step forward. At least the PS3 and Xbox 360 had some backwards compatibility. Now it is nonexistent and Sony, and I'm sure soon Microsoft, are selling subscription based rentals of those games instead. Maybe I'm just spoiled being primarily a PC gamer.

So basically they are charging you the same price it costs just to buy a game on sale. Uh I would rather just buy one game of my choosing on sale a month (or more than one :P) than pay that for a subscription service.

I don't see what everyone is pissed about to be honest. It's $20 a month to play 100+ games on your PS4 24/7. You spend more money in one night going to the movie theater. How is this not a good deal? Can you honestly say you couldn't find more than 5 games on the list, which no one has seen yet, you would be willing to pay $20 for and play anytime of day at a click of a button?

I get your point about being charged for something they could have just included as a feature from the get-go, but I'll take what I can get at this point. Having the option to pay a fee to play old games on a new console is preferable to not being able to do it at all. My biggest concern here is that they might get tepid interest at this high price point and conclude, "well, I guess people don't want to play old games" and abandon the idea entirely.

@phileskyline: The current list is here: http://community.us.playstation.com/t5/PlayStation-Now/PlayStation-Now-Title-List/td-p/44466574

There's honestly a fair number of good titles on the list.

I like the idea of a discounted subscription for PS Plus members. That would probably get me on board. I'm guessing that the reason they don't do this is because a lot of PS4 owners have PS Plus already, but we'll see what they do. It isn't like they couldn't decide to do something like that in the future.

I think there must be a commercial reason they can't pull this off because it would make sense to me that they would let you "buy" games from Playstation Now. What's weird is that they have games on PS Now that you can buy in the PS3 store. Why not just set it up so that if you buy it in the PS Store, you can play it through PS Now? That would seem reasonable. I think it must have something to do with licensing or something like that. It seems like something they could technically pull off if they wanted to.

Not enough games yet in my opinion. Call me when it has A BILLION!

I can't help compare it to Gamefly, which is only $15 a month for a much wider selection of games, new and old, on any console. I know it's not quite the same thing, but $20 a month to be able to play a select handful of playstation titles over a streaming service (which adds its own issues) just doesn't seem like that great of a deal. Perhaps if they were to get a solid collection of some of the more niche PS2 games that are harder to find and play it would be more enticing, but given that they basically have to hand pick the games that will be on the service it seems unlikely that most of those will ever make it onto the service at all.

If the catalog included more PS1 and PS2 games I would be in for sure.

For me a game has far, far more value than a TV show or movie, so comparing this to Netflix shows PS Now as very favourable in my view. I'm just not very pumped for PS3 game streaming, considering my PS3 is still hooked up and I have tons of games for it / more interested in older games..

240 a year would be a steal if we were talking about every PS1 classic and every PS2 and PS3 game they can throw on there.

Never had a PS3, so I might use this to play exclusives that passed me by.

metal gear solid 4 please

I think the $20 price point is really there to drive people towards the $15 price point (the three month subscription). In that case, it's very slightly cheaper than GameFly's one-game-at-a-time sub at $15.95 a month, and as opposed to GameFly which also includes waiting lists, etc., it gives you instant access to the library in question.

Basically, they aren't directly comparable in my opinion. I do think the GameFly price point is good point of comparison, as is OnLive's PlayPack, which is $9.95 but for mostly old PC titles and indies as opposed to PS3 titles.

Would be more interested if I didn't still have my PS3. Can only see myself using it for games not on the PS3 Store, as my Slim's disc drive doesn't work anymore.

Seems like a good step in the right direction. I know it's not too appealing now, but I believe they do plan to add PS1 and PS2 titles to this PS Now Library.

I don't see the numbers of subscribers being huge off the bat, but it'll slowly go up over the years considering it's coming to sony tv's, samsung tvs, PS3, vita and is of course already on PS4.

It's smart. I just hope the library gets bigger sooner rather than later.

I myself probably won't ever subscribe because I'm one of those crazy people that keep all their old consoles hooked up and ready to go at all times.

I haven't gotten a PS4 yet - does Playstation Now require PS Plus? If it doesn't, and they introduced a reduced rate for PS Plus subscribers (say, $15/month for PS Plus Subscribers), and we got a critical mass of the games in my personal PSN/PS3/PS2 library, then I'd be in like Flynn. I might even buy a PS4 just for that (never mind any additional PS4 games - though I'll certainly get some of those too).

@count_zero said:

It does not require PS Plus, and they didn't announce a reduced rate for PS Plus subscribers.

It's kind of cool that you can use it on Playstation TV.

I'm not too interested in PS3 library...but once we get around to the PS2 and PS1 library, I can see myself giving it a look.

A bit too steep for my tastes. I was hoping it would be PS1,2,and 3 games when it launched and not JUST PS3 games.

Yeah. 20 bucks a month is a little bit too expensive for me. Half that price would be more appealing.

I still have my PS3 available, but that really is a pretty good deal. I know some are thinking that it isn't reasonable compared to Netflix or whatever, but a game isn't the same thing as a movie. It's a more intense load on their servers, they are far longer experiences, and it's interactive streaming as opposed to just watching a movie. Ten extra bucks doesn't seem crazy.

I am actually surprised by the negative response to the price. I have no interest in this only because I don't have enough time to play current games, let alone old ones. If I had more time though I would consider 20 bucks a month for this library to be a fucking steal.

I think I'd need to actually to see how for myself how the streaming works before I'd be comfortable with that kind of monthly commitment.

I wonder what happens to your saves if you decide to terminate the subscription and then later change you mind and re-sub?

This.

And honestly, how likely are all 100 of them are games anyone would care to play? I wouldn't be surprised if we have a high noise-to-signal ratio.

Besides, I got the PS3 games I want for the most part, so barring new releases, I'm good on the PS3. If it breaks, I'll send that shit to Rapid Fire Gaming and get it working again. Fuck a $20/month sub.

I wouldn't think of this as $20 a month in the vein that you'd continue to sub perpetually like you will with PS+, but more likely you put down 20 bucks for one month randomly when there's say 10 games you want to get through that month, you do that, and then you stop the subscription; and 20 bucks for 10 games isn't a bad deal.

A bit much for me. I spend more than $240 a year on games, but I'm not too sure about the streaming quality. I doubt it will be as good as the disk version. Maybe if they offered the same service but let me download the games. Like a full access PS+ account or something. I'm not sure why they allow streaming the games but not downloading them. Weird legal thing in there probably.

@subyman: That's kind of like OnLive's CloudLift service. It's a good idea, but would only work for PS3 owners since they can't emulate the PS3 on PS4 or Vita, etc.

Sony guy who wrote this post said the saves go into the cloud and will stay there, even after you unsub.

@fredchuckdave: Are you saying you can beat 10 Playstation 3 games in one month?

@yesiamaduck: For most games yes, obviously I couldn't beat 10 Skyrims or whatever; but the average game length is probably around 12 hours or so; you could probably shave that down to 8-9 with the right choices. 80-90 hours is a decent amount in a month but it's not totally insane or anything/you pick which month it is ahead of time. Given that you had a time limit and a subscription you'd have extra impetus to actually complete them as well.

Below is Gamefly's price list

How is $16 a month for one game at a time at Gamefly better than $20 a month with access to more than 100 games at finger tips? No delivery, get the game now. No the games won't be new releases like Call of Duty or Far Cry 4 but that's not what it's suppose to do. They give you games from the PS1, PS2, and PS3 era.

Imagine streaming Kingdom Hearts, Saints Row, Resident Evil, Little Big Planet, Twisted Metal, Virtua Fighter 4, or Okami at any time. Those are just seven that come to mind but there will be so much more available. Once you beat it or get bored back out and load up another game. I doubt you can buy all these games together from eBay for $20 bucks. I'm sure a PS4 game would pop up every once in a while but you got to admit the PS catalog is pretty deep and to have a service that allows you to access those games whenever you want is pretty epic.

Regarding the connection stability. I was in the beta and the streaming connection was solid. I played fighters and puzzle games and it ran stable. I had 25 up and 25 down at that time now I have 50 up and 50 down. I believe most gamers interested in this service would have a pretty fast internet connection.

Update: IGN just posted a list of every game on PlayStation Now at the moment:

So having access to play any of these games from $20 a month or $45 for three months is too high?

@phileskyline: IGN no doubt pulled that from this post, which contains a continually updated list: http://community.us.playstation.com/t5/PlayStation-Now/PlayStation-Now-Title-List/td-p/44466574

I've bolded it in my original post since people missed it the first time I posted it.

My complaint is not the price, but the selection. I don't like that they're creating a separate list for subscription vs single title rental. It sets a bad precedent and, frankly, most of the games on the subscription service are of no interest to me.

Finally! Now I am interested. Paying to "rent" individual games was more hassle than I was willing to go through considering that there's a place near me that still physically rents them-- but being able to pay a flat $20 to check out a whole bunch of weird stuff starts to sound like a good deal. I hoped they would do it at some point.

I do wonder what the staying power will be-- like, how many games they'll end up adding in the long run, whether games will end up randomly leaving the service at some point, Netflix-style-- but this seems like a really cool thing to me.

Price is too high considering that we are already paying for PS Plus. Plain and simple.

Its probably because they have to pay for the servers and bandwidth to actually run and stream the game for you, rather then just the bandwidth for the few times you would download a regular downloadable game. If you bought a game from PS Now that you then "owned" and played it all the time without paying a subscription they would eventually end up losing money on the resources needed to run that game for you on there servers.

I find the price to be reasonable, but i also still have my PS3 hooked up so buying the games is still probably the better option for me personally. Makes me wounder if they could make a rental service for slightly less where i could have access to a large catalog of "rentals" from the PS store but just download them and play them on my PS3/PS4/Vita rather then stream them, but once the rental period ends i lose those game just like PS+. I find that a little more appealing personally for the better performance and less stress on my own internet.

@phileskyline: Who actually plays 100 games at once though? At most I might pick two to jump between, but if it's something I'm really into I only need one. But the issue of new vs old should definitely be a factor in value proposition. With Gamefly I could get a brand new $60 game and play it to completion. That's a lot of money saved over buying it. However you can buy pretty much anything on that list for $20 or less. That does not seem like such a great value by comparison, especially considering that while there are a few decent games on that list, there's not a single one I would want to pay a subscription fee to access. They need to dramatically expand that list if they want it to seem worthwhile. Like I said, a good selection of niche PS2 games would make this interesting, not a bunch of cheap and easily obtainable PS3 games.

Just to be clear, I don't subscribe to Gamefly either, because I generally like to own my games, but if I wanted to subscribe to such a service Gamefly is far more appealing right now.