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