Curious if anyone has tried it out. I'm cheap and don't want to pay them just to find out if it works.

@sumjugei: Just as cheap here!

Considering, "back in the day" I could rent any video game for 3 or 4 days for $5, I don't see myself jumping on until theres a price scheme that is similar.

I'd be willing to go $7 for 4 days, or $10 for a full week. Unfortunately, I don't see that being the case.

Tried it out with FFXIII, got the 7 day rental. I have a pretty good connection, nothing that impressive though, and it handled it pretty well. The input lag was there for sure but wasn't an issue in my mind. It would make anything fast paced like an FPS or character action game near unplayable but for an RPG like FF it is totally fine. My main issue is the resolution is fairly low, a reasonable compromise to reduce input lag but it is still a little jarring.

The prices are obviously nuts too, no way do they stay that way long term. I'm interested in the subscription model they are planning. I kind of wish you could outright buy a license key to stream the game whenever you want too.

Overall I think it has a bunch of early problems I expected at launch but I think long term it could be a totally viable way to play older PS games.

Yeah, they should at least give you one free game to just try it out. If it works well and more people experience that it works well, it will only gain it more buzz.

The closed beta had a couple games available for free, Jimmy Johnson's Anything With an Engine and some dual joystick shooter that's name is escaping me.

I have a good connection and it worked very well. The shooter was even 60fps, which was pretty impressive. The input delay was no more than you'd get on a plasma screen (I was playing on a low latency monitor) and the image quality was decent (though certainly with some video compression). Overall I was pretty impressed with it, but the fucking awful pricing model kind of kills any interest I might have had in actually using it.

I tried a few of the free games during the beta. Mercury HG, Dead Rising Riptide, Space Ace, and some other I can't remember at the moment. They all seemed to run fine. Some of the pricing seems kinda nuts, though, but I could see myself renting certain games that I never played for a week or so(for the right price).

I tested my connection over wifi, it told me it wouldn't work. I'll probably never give it a chance. I'll just wait until they start bringing PS1/2 games to the store like they did on the PS3.

I rented MGS4 during the closed beta for a week. Except for semi-frequent audio glitches, it was basically indistinguishable from playing it on a PS3. This was using Wi-Fi.

MGS4 is the main reason im kinda interested in psnow. I went from ps2 to xbox 360 to ps4, so I never got to play MGS4. I may have to try this out.

meh

@joey: MGS 4 was actually the first PS Now game I bought. I wanted to get it because I skipped the ps3 era and really was interested in metal gear. I rented it for 7 days and tried it with my wifi but it was very slow and had bad audio. I bought a 70 ft lan cable to connect it to my ps4 but by then my rental period had expired.

Meh. Some of the prices seem crazy. Only one that kinda makes sense is the $7 for 7 days or whatever it is and thats only because when I was a kid I would rent a game every week from Blockbuster for about that much.

Prices below and above that seem kinda whack. Also when they want to charge you $7 to rent an old game when you can go and buy it new for $15-20 or whatever.

But I'm not the target audience I guess. I like having physical media and I like owning games. I didn't even consider the video quality until people mentioned it here and blah no way I would settle for that.

I think I would be more interested in older games as well. Stuff from PS1/PS2 gen. Things that you can't exactly go to the store and buy. Or preservation of classics so that you could be bored and browse through and be like "Whoa, there was a sequel to this obscure game I loved as a kid? Sure I'll check that out for $2.50 for 24 hour rental" or something. And if I liked it, I would go buy the physical game for $5

Or the games where the physical copies are hard to come by and rare and expensive.

Blah I don't know. I just want more of a preservation tool I guess. I want PSN to have a massive library of like every game that's ever been on a Sony platform. So I can buy things or get freebies or whatever.

Personally, I find some of the prices pretty bad to be considered a rental. I was in the first closed beta where the small selection of games were free(Way of the Samurai 3, Sniper Ghost Warrior 2,Ben 10 Omniverse,Legasista) and I figured maybe you would pay a flat fee once this was officially out but nope.

Streaming wise, some of it was fine for games while others were pretty laggy such as Sniper. I'm definitely worried about how fighting games will handle on this thing such as USFIV.

Prices are fucked.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>First impressions with PlayStation Now are actually better than I expected. Would anyone want us to mess around with it on UPF today?</p>&mdash; Brad Shoemaker (@bradshoemaker) <a href="https://twitter.com/bradshoemaker/statuses/495271121638264832">August 1, 2014</a></blockquote>

<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

edit: huh, I wonder how people have been embedding these things this whole time.

I tried the open beta with BlazBlue Calamity Trigger and I could do some combos. I did notice some input lag around the time of start-up but it got a bit better after. I would use it again if they have a subscription model but I wouldn't use it for the current prices.

Thinking about trying Zeno Clash 2. Think it was 15 bucks for 90 days.

But, overall, I agree with most everyone. The pricing is ridiculous. Darksiders 2 for 30 bucks for 90 days? F1 2013 for 50 bucks for 90 days? What in the fuck?

Also, I really want the ability to purchase endless streaming of a game. Say I rent it for 4 hours and like it and want to have all the time in the world to play it... that would be nice. Not expecting that to be an option tho so maybe a subscription service would be nice although I don't think I'd pay for that.

How was ranked matches? if you could find any at all

what? It's full price 15 bucks forever on Steam. I get it, PSN =/ Steam, but that is a *wee bit* funny I think.

That F1 price though... O_o

The pricing is messed up, most of the games on there are $5-$10 to buy, not sure why you'd pay more to rent them and burn up your bandwidth to stream it.

I'm sure it will do well for them, but it's definitely not for me.

@nodima: Just hit the "Tweet" button on the bottom bar of the text editor and put the URL in there.

Also i messed with Now when it had the free games in Beta and played PixelJunk Eden. Other then a few times when it lost video or inputs for a few seconds, and there was also a bug where i could still hear and still control the game, but the video basically froze and wouldn't fix itself so i had to restart the game, it worked with very good video quality and no real noticeable input lag (but Eden isn't exactly a fast paced game) over WiFi. It has basically all the features you would expect from running it on a real PS3 (didn't try YouTube uploads but i heard there where bugs on the forums with that) like online and local multiplayer, but i wouldn't use it just yet for anything fast paced, but your results might be better if you are wired rather then over WiFi like i was.

Overall i came in thinking it wouldn't really work that well, there would be obvious input and video lag ect. But other then a few bugs and hiccups that are hopefully worked out by now it left me kinda shocked how well it actually worked, until i told my friend he thought he was straight up playing directly on the PS3 when i let him try.

I started out pretty worried about it, but it's great so far! Loaded up my FF 13 save from my ps3 saved game and picked it up right from there! Back to work on that platinum I guess. However, I hope they sort the pricing the fuck out cuz shits crazy...

lol. No one is playing that thing anymore. I'm curious as to how that would run as well.

I wonder if they'll bring Persona 5 to PS Now on/near release. That's probably too much to ask. But if I had the option I would probably stream it on PS4/Vita rather than play it on PS3.

I have got to say. Not bad. I went straight for the jugular and rented grid 2. I figured if anything was going to stress test this thing it be a racing game. Some input lag for sure, but nothing I couldn't compensate for. Color me impressed. Now with that said I still don't feel it's the ideal way to play a game like that. But in a pinch it seems ok. Once they get the pricing in order I would consider using it more often.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Rent for 30 days for $14.99. Disc version on Amazon, $17.00. Steam version, regularly $4.99.

The pricing is absurd, I don't know what Sony is thinking.

Sounds like the tech works (from testimonials here and elsewhere)

The current pricing makes some sense. Some people are staying away, and they can lower prices as they stress test the system.

I could also see them wanting to aim high initially and dial it down to a sweet spot. If they started low and raised them a few times in the first year people would be upset about that too.

An important thing to remember is that the pricing while crazy right now will be less so long term. Having to pay that much simply to stream PS3 games to a PS4 is too much, but paying that much to be able to stream to a PS4 and Vita helps soothe the pain. Sure the pricing will still be too high but the convenience of being able to play on PS4 then switch over to Vita, saves look to be stored server side as well so saves should carry over, does justify a higher price than simply being able to stream to just a PS4.

I can totally see Sony leaving the pricing as-is, but then adding in one or two free streaming Now games per month into PS+, along with perhaps some rotating discounts.

i'd love to see some kind of discount if you own the game already digitally. Also, maybe like a 5 minute free trial or something just to make sure the game plays okay over the streaming. I wouldn't be happy if i paid for the rental and the game played like shit.

I'd be down for that. But then I'd never use Now if they did that either. I really wish they just bundled it in with PS+. Extra 5 bucks or something and you get unlimited (or limited) streaming of games. Like a game a month maybe I dunno. I'd consider doing that.

And I was mistaken about Zeno Clash 2. It's only 5 bucks for 90 days which sounds great to me. Still, I can't get over F1 2013...50 bucks!!! for 90 days. That's crazy.

I have absolutely no idea how anybody can like this service. Why pay an obscene amount of money just to rent the game when you may as well just buy it cheaper? Not to mention the fact that you'll have guaranteed access to the game and wont have to worry about your internet connection being fast enough.

This service was designed with morons in mind. Sony wants to rob you, and I cant believe some people seem totally okay with that. Just look at N4G. That place is Sony fanboy central, and even a lot of them don't seem to like PSNow very much.

I hope Sony looks at the prices, or can look at teh prices. It would be nice if 1/3 of the games were FREE for one hour, and if all others were $2.

The issue as I see it is that players need to realize, when they are playing a shard/instance of a game on a server Sony is pushing some fair amount of data. The player is exchanging data constantly with another computer, that HAS TO cost something even if some packets are small. In fact the cost of data back and forth for days and weeks is probably much more than if they just squirted the whole game to you. So in effect this is a very cost intensive way of paying/sending games.

What you are paying for is nearly instantaneous access to play, and Sony gets some data security. You don't wait for it all to download, you don't have to buy the whole thing for $30-$60, and so quite literally you are PAYING for the convenience if you want the convenience. I can well imagine for some (most?) people the convenience is not worth it.

So, why do I say make it free for an hour? Well that's a loss leader to get people to try it...to maybe want to continue playing a game for longer for some price.

I don't really think anyone is giving it a pass. Everyone is complaining that the pricing is ridiculous. Even on the PSBlog where you will more than likely see everyone praise everything Sony does they are complaining about it.

Hopefully no one will use it and they will adjust the pricing to fix that. Hopefully it doesn't just die becuase I'd be interested.

I'd be interested in it for MGS4, maybe a few others, but the prices are way too high for me. I'm an adult with responsibilities, so when I play through a game it takes me a long time to get through it. This pricing structure just isn't for me.

I agree with the pricing on a few games. I think some are fine. At my Blockbuster (god rest his/her soul) it was around 8 or 9 bucks for a 5 day rent. A few of these games have a price of sound 5-8 dollars for usually a week, sometimes more and I think that's fair. But things get fuzzy when it's 30 dollars to rent saints row 4 for 3 months and your only other option is 4 hours for 2.99. That's kind of bananas. It all depends though on the future of the service. If i am going to be able to rent ps4 games for say 15 bucks for a month or two, that's not too bad for a brand new game. For a ps3 game though? I don't think most people would bite unless it's something that is really close to someone. Oh well, it is in it's beta stages and pricing will surely change. I would really love to see some plus benifits to this. Maybe 1 free week rent a month or something like that.

The week-long pricing seems perfectly fine to me. The games look alright, but not as good as off the disc. I had a few weird control quirks, but that occurred while playing Alpha Protocol, a game known to have a few weird control quirks. Overall, I can imagine playing quite a few games this way.

I think they're trying to stop trade ins of games by giving those people who buy day one ($48 at Best Buy GCU for instance) and trade in after a week (for $35-42 depending on the promo), the ability to just rent a new release for $7.99-9.99 for a week.

The biggest problem now is the selection. Theres no major full price games like The Last of Us. The majority are PSN exclusives that cost $15 to buy normally. Keeping your PS3 and buying something with more HDMI inputs would be more cost effective. Also, theres no discount for games you already bought so this doesn't replace backwards compatibility like they sort of initially hinted at (when asked years back if PS4 would be b.c. they'd say... no need, were making PSNow!).

I don't get it, just buy a PS3, take it out of the closet every few months when you want to play it. Same goes for any console ever, why does backwards compatibility have to be an issue. Are people that tied for space? Even in a small apartment, get a bookshelf, neatly stack all your games for all your consoles on it, throw said consoles in a closet/wardrobe.

I don't think renting a game for 4 bucks for a week is me being a moron. At least one of them(Swarm) is 4 bucks for a whole 30 days, and Zeno Clash 2 is 5 bucks for 90 days.

And, I'm talking about those specific prices. I do agree that most of the prices seem crazy. I also don't know how much of the pricing is on Sony or the various game's publishers. The difference in pricing on the various games kind of makes me assume it's more the publisher's than Sony.

Basically, some of the prices seem fine and the rest are nuts. If you could buy the game for the rental price, then there is no point in renting.

If you're looking to rent a game just to try it out and see how it is, I don't think the prices are too bad. But I think a lot more people were perhaps looking at the idea of owning the game so that they can play it as much as they want to. When they announced the service, I had the impression they were trying to market themselves at people who didn't have a PS3, especially those who only had 360. The idea of getting your hands on the backlog of games sounds pretty enticing since it gives you access to so many games. But I think those people would like to actually own the games, and this is where the service falls apart due to the pricing. You can buy a lot of these games cheaper than the 90-day rental price, even with the game being brand new. Plus, I highly doubt someone would want to pay something like $40 for a game that will eventually get taken away from them, even if they really are looking forward to it.

A subscription model makes plenty more sense, but they have to get the pricing of that right. In a world of Netflix and Hulu, the bar for pricing and value has been set rather high. Something tells me they won't get the price right in the initial offering. I think they'll set it too high, only to lower it as people speak up about the high price they charge for the subscription. I could be totally wrong, but I just get that feeling...

Oh, I will totally admit that most people hate the pricing, which makes me happy to see. But I've seen articles trying to explain to me why it's actually a good deal, and I can't seem to wrap my head around it.

No, $4 for a week is just an okay deal, in my opinion. That's a lot more like the kind of prices you'd see at Blockbuster, and that's fine. And if you decide to use the service every once in a while, for games like that, then sure, go for it.

But my concern is the pitiful "4-hour" rentals, and the unbelievably expensive 90 day rentals. 30 bucks, for a rental. You have access to a game for 90 days, you have to be online, and it costs you $30 of your hard-earned dollars. And at the end of 90 days, buh-bye. Whereas you could go to any store, pick up that same game for close to that same price, or even cheaper in some cases. And you have it as long as you want. Not to mention the fact that it will be lag-free.

@jsnyder82: Yeah, we seem to be in agreement then. Those 30 dollar rentals are crazy. The 4 hour rentals might be ok if they were never over one dollar and maybe only let you rent it once...make it like a demo type thing, or something. I don't know...the 4 hour things are kinda weird to me no matter the price. I guess they make sense for some games, though(something short like Journey).

And I think the prices on those Telltale games are nuts too. 4 bucks for 90 days sounds good, but that is per episode, which means if you rent all the episodes you spend the same amount it takes to just buy all the episodes.

I tried Enslaved quickly. I admit my internet is garbage. And the game ran poorly. It was slightly choppy as if the framerate was 20 or so and there was a good 1/2 or so input delay. Sucks but not surprising for my case.

It looked extremely impressive on Unprofessional Fridays, but that was on business internet.

I've tried it out and honestly think it's a pretty good service. The pricing for some stuff is pretty insane sure, but some of it is reasonable when I factor in how convenient it is. Also:

I hope to god this happens. I'm not willing to buy a PS3 only for Persona 5, but I also want some way to play Persona 5. I can only hope Sony is smart enough to anticipate this desire.

Anyone complaining about the pricing obviously never rented a game in the 80s or 90s

The 2 and 4 hour rentals seem dumb though. Can't defend that.

Isn't Zeno Clash $15 to buy? $20 at the absolute most...

I was still renting games into the 2000s, and good thing too since I would have missed a lot of amazing mid tier games like Viewtiful Joe if I wasn't playing a new game every week.

Yeah, it should be around that price to buy it, but it's only 5 bucks for the 90 day rental, not 15.