Perhaps one of the biggest complaints of Sony's game streaming service, PlayStation Now, was the issue of having to queue up, and play games streamed over an internet connection. This caused issues like latency, and if your connection wasn't good enough, you could wind up getting booted from the game entirely. As of today, however, Sony has changed the policy on PlayStation Now, allowing for subscribers to download games directly to their PlayStation 4's hard drive. You can even play your downloaded catalog of games entirely offline, so long as you check in online once every week. This new feature works for a majority of games on the service, including the PS2-on-PS4 titles. PlayStation is planning to roll out this new change within the next few days. If you've never tried PlayStation Now, you can get a 7 day free trial, in order to test it out.

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[Xzi]

My biggest complaint is locking these games to any kind of subscription service. Fuck me if maybe I just want to buy one of them and keep it on my PS4, right Sony?

 

[Deleted User]

My biggest complaint is locking these games to any kind of subscription service. Fuck me if maybe I just want to buy one of them and keep it on my PS4, right Sony?

What?..... then just buy them on PSN store?

 

[Xzi]

What?..... then just buy them on PSN store?

I could be wrong, but it seems like a vast majority of what's offered on PSNow isn't available for purchase on the PSN store. I guess there's a good reason for that with PS3 games, but even many PS2 games like Katamari are missing.

 

[Deleted User]

I could be wrong, but it seems like a vast majority of what's offered on PSNow isn't available for purchase on the PSN store. I guess there's a good reason for that with PS3 games, but even many PS2 games like Katamari are missing.

You are wrong, every PS2 game on now is on PS4 PSN store, PS3 games are the only ones not available to buy on PS4.

 

[the_randomizer]

So they made they streaming serice into renting one?

Sure beats streaming IMO.

 

[Xzi]

You are wrong, every PS2 game on now is on PS4 PSN store, PS3 games are the only ones not available to buy on PS4.

I'm both right and wrong. Every PS2 game on PSNow is available to buy on the store, but they're also missing a lot of PS2 titles in favor of their PS3 sequels/remakes. For instance, Katamari Forever is the only Katamari game you can play on PS4, and only by subscribing to PSNow. This was probably purposeful in a number of cases to make PSNow seem more appealing than it really is.

Glad I have a hacked PS3 on a shelf somewhere for this type of thing, but I'm not glad that Sony is making this so convoluted that it's easier to dust off older hardware. I'd be much happier if they'd just start porting PS3's greatest hits to PS4 like Nintendo is doing with WiiU and Switch.

 

[Yepi69]

Useful for who can access it... so like 3 or 4 countries.
For others its useless.

 

[Wolfy]

is this function for ps4 only? any chance to get it on pc??

........not how this works man, it's a service like Xbox Live and EA Access, except it's only for PS4.

 

[leon315]

........not how this works man, it's a service like Xbox Live and EA Access, except it's only for PS4.

i'm pretty sure the service PS now is available on pc too, just i have no idea how it works on pc...

 

[KingVamp]

I also feel like you should be able to get the games permanently through PSN, because why not? I hope that's the future of cloud, along side digital download.

 

[Arras]

i'm pretty sure the service PS now is available on pc too, just i have no idea how it works on pc...

Yes, the streaming part is available on pc, I believe. Offline downloads are obviously not, as that would require Sony to let people run ps4 games on their PC.

 

[Jonna]

Never mind.

 

[RedBlueGreen]

This is actually really cool. It's the latency and video artifacts that kept me away from PS Now.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Neat I guess. I'd rather PS Now be tacked onto PS+ personally, or perhaps have a monthly discount for PS+ users, cuz I don't think it's worth the extra cost per month myself.

But this is a nice way to compete with Xbox's Game pass stuff, I figured Sony would come up with something along the same lines eventually.

 

[Lumince]

Never mind.

Why you do dis

 

[Paulsar99]

Smart move. They should have done this a long time ago though.

 

[the_randomizer]

Streaming be damned, keeping games or downloading them is much better.

 

[Xzi]

Streaming be damned, keeping games or downloading them is much better.

Yeah, keeping > renting (physical or download) > streaming. A monthly fee for a digital rental service seems like a much better value than a fee for a streaming service. That said, none of it is really for me, each modern console only has about 15 exclusives worth playing at most. Far more efficient to just buy the games I want to play when the price is low enough, especially given the length of some of them.

 

[Wolfy]

i'm pretty sure the service PS now is available on pc too, just i have no idea how it works on pc...

True the service works on PC, but he was asking if this "feature" was on PC, which it is not currently.

 

[DuoForce]

Hopefully its the same for us PC players