You can now access PlayStation games without owning a Sony device.
Sony’s PlayStation Now game-streaming cloud service has just launched on certain Samsung television sets. If you’re in the United States or Canada, and you own a smart TV from the South Korean consumer-electronics giant, check Samsung’s Smart Hub app store. You’ll also need a DualShock 4 controller to actually control the games. This is the first step in expanding PlayStation content beyond the limits of PlayStation- or Sony-branded hardware, and this could represent the future of content delivery for game publishers.
[aditude-amp id="flyingcarpet" targeting='{"env":"staging","page_type":"article","post_id":1746217,"post_type":"story","post_chan":"none","tags":null,"ai":false,"category":"none","all_categories":"games,","session":"C"}']Cloud gaming is one of the technologies that may replace dedicated hardware in the future. And Sony is trying to position itself as a leader in this space now with the tech it purchased when it acquired Gaikai in 2012. By offering older games, PS Now could mature alongside Internet speeds so that Sony has an established delivery mechanism ready if and when a transition away from physical happens. It’s possible that cloud streaming, with remote servers powered by better and better technology, could make replacing the PS4 with a PlayStation 5, for example, obsolete. But problems with latency due to unreliable Internet connections and other issues pose obstacles that Sony could start solving with PS Now as it exists today.
PlayStation Now debuted last year, and gamers have had access to it through the PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, and PlayStation TV systems. It’s also on certain Sony TV sets. It has a library of over 100 PlayStation 3 releases, and players can subscribe to get unlimited access to a subset of those games for $20 a month or $45 for three months. Customers can rent individual PS Now games without a subscription as well.
PS Now includes compatibility with PlayStation Network features like multiplayer gaming, trophies, and cloud saves. So even if you are only playing on a Samsung set, and you don’t own a PlayStation device at all, you’ll still get the benefits of Sony’s existing Internet infrastructure.