Over the past year, PlayStation has definitely upped its game in terms of free game offerings. Between the rotating monthly free PS Plus games,the PS Plus Collection for PlayStation 5 owners, and the Play At Home initiatives, Sony has garnered plenty of goodwill from its fans looking for free high-quality games. One service PlayStation offers that often falls to the wayside in conversations about great game offers is PS Now, Sony’s cloud-based gaming subscription service.
For some reason, Sony itself doesn’t seem to be particularly invested in PS Now despite constantly pouring new games into it. Despite the remarkable deal of the service, there’s rarely any advertising devoted to it. Instead, that space usually goes toPS Plus' free monthly games or other PlayStation offerings. It seems like the company is struggling to see the potential of how great the many services of PS Now already are and that, with a little bit of work, it could surpass the popularity of all Sony’s other services including PS Plus.
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The Sheer Volume of PS Now’s Offering
Fixing PlayStation’s Backwards Compatibility Problem
With the release of the PS5, Sony said that the company “believes in generations.” Unfortunately,backwards compatibility is a huge hurdle for the PS5, as it doesn’t allow any sort of backwards compatible play for any games not released on the PS4. This decision is directly contrasted with Microsoft’s Xbox Series X which allows owners to put select Xbox discs from any generation into their console and play it. PS Now is the solution Sony is looking for to fix this lack of cross-generational play, they just need to market it more.
PS Now offers titles originally on PS2, PS3, PS4, and even newer releases on the PS5. Anyone looking to get a taste of years past by revisiting PlayStation classics likeSly Cooper,inFAMOUS, or theGod of Warseries can do just that with a subscription. Criticism of Sony’s lack of backwards compatibility options are frequently made by PlayStation fans, and it would be in Sony’s best interest to point those unhappy with the PS5 to PS Now. The library is full of older titles and not just the most popular games of generations past, it includes deeper cuts for those looking for a more specific, non-mainstream experience.
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PS Now’s Biggest Issue
WhilePS Now has plenty of good parts to it, one glaring issue is its existence as a mainly streaming-based service. Some games are downloadable from PS Now directly onto a PlayStation 4/5’s hard drive/SSD, but many games still don’t have that option and need to be streamed. This is a problem for anyone without high-speed internet, rendering plenty of games unplayable. When internet speed slows for streamed games, input delay and lag become huge obstacles in the way of an enjoyable experience. Even those who have reliable internet might experience outages from time to time which means absolutely no streaming while the internet is down.
How Can PS Now Grow Bigger than PS Plus?
Deciding the service’s direction in terms of streaming vs. downloading might also incentivize PlayStation owners to dip in as well. As it currently stands,streaming games on PS Nowusing a potentially unreliable internet connection just isn’t very feasible. If Sony can lock in more games for direct download, the company might be able to convince fans that PS Now offers a more consistent experience across the board for those with shaky connections.
Merging PS Plus and PS Now
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