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PlayStation Now, Sony's 'Netflix For Games' -- Pros and Cons
An anonymous reader writes: When Sony acquired nascent cloud gaming service Gaikai, it was obvious they were interested in bringing streamed gaming to the PlayStation. The service is in the process of coming online, in a beta test that started this week. The idea is simple, and one that game companies are excited about — but it's also complex and expensive, creating a new problem for each one it solves. The biggest difficulty you'd expect — latency — actually seems to hold up pretty well. It'll even hold its own when fighting for bandwidth with Netflix and other video streams.
But the expense of using the service is excessive. "To rent Darksiders, a game that's been practically given away to PC owners thanks to Humble Bundle and the collapse of publisher THQ, you can pay $14.99 for 90 days, $7.99 for 30 days, $5.99 for 5 days or — no joke — $4.99 for four hours. ... Final Fantasy 13-2 costs $29.99 for 90 days. A used copy of the same costs $20 at GameStop." In addition, the pricing options are unusual and unpredictable. Users can't simply pay a flat monthly fee for service. "Variable pricing is in place because Sony gave the publishers and developers free reign to set their own prices, which results in wildly disparate costs for different games and different periods of rental time. It's not even mandatory that you have to have all four categories of rental time. I went to check out Saints Row 3 and found that it only had the four hour and 90 day options."
But the expense of using the service is excessive. "To rent Darksiders, a game that's been practically given away to PC owners thanks to Humble Bundle and the collapse of publisher THQ, you can pay $14.99 for 90 days, $7.99 for 30 days, $5.99 for 5 days or — no joke — $4.99 for four hours. ... Final Fantasy 13-2 costs $29.99 for 90 days. A used copy of the same costs $20 at GameStop." In addition, the pricing options are unusual and unpredictable. Users can't simply pay a flat monthly fee for service. "Variable pricing is in place because Sony gave the publishers and developers free reign to set their own prices, which results in wildly disparate costs for different games and different periods of rental time. It's not even mandatory that you have to have all four categories of rental time. I went to check out Saints Row 3 and found that it only had the four hour and 90 day options."
Anyone else remember sega channel for sega genesis? i think 11.99 got me unlimited games on it for the month (granted i only recall 5-8 games on it at a time, and they would rotate every month) Seems like a much better price structure to me. 9.99 a month to play whatever limited rotating catalog is there, i think a number of gamers would pay for that, but with the prices the way they are talking it will fail (after it makes moms and dads angry at their kids for their 200 a month gaming bill)
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Were it "Netflix for games" you'd pay a flat monthly fee and be able to play whatever game(s) you want.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
This is awful. If this were something affordable and flat rate it would be an amazing success. -gotta be a way, better way, better waaay hey..
PROS:
Lets you live forever
Gives great blow jobs
Makes you wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice
CONS:
Sony
Looks like the CONS trump all the PROS.
Not with this pricing model.
PSA: On consoles, it's much cheaper to buy retail discs than to touch any form of digital-only delivery. Especially if you're willing to wait a few months from launch, but even if you buy the latest and greatest(tm).
I apologize for the lack of a signature.
...here's why:
Renting games is ANY company's wettest dream. Hollywood have a long history of re-releasing their old office hits over and over again, milking the same cow into retirement and even beyond the grave, and families of actors & owners loves this, it's a guaranteed way to get money - basically forever!
Why sell you the game, when they can rent it to you over and over again? Remember that cool GTA5 game you paid 60$ (Some of us in Sweden paid 120$ for it) back in the days? 10 years later you want to revive your "fun days" and in a future of "rental only" game systems, they'll be able to MILK you into oblivion for as long as it takes, with literally millions of old programs from every system, simply because you didn't protect your purchases - it's not their fault either, it's YOU who accept it and thinks it's totally okay to do so.
Netflix is a GREAT ad-free service, so much so that I've been lazy when it comes to my DVD collection. But what Netflix doesn't give me is a permanent possibility to relive those fun moments I had with a few flicks some years ago...unless they've paid for the license to retain the flick in their collection. When it's in MY DVD collection, I don't need a license or permission, I just dust of that old DVD player and have a GREAT time - for free (or at least get the full value of true ownership).
I have Wii-U, and we finally have some great games for it (certainly took a while), it even comes with downloadable indie-games that are so cheap (and fun) they rival the second-hand store/game-this-and-game-that-stores AND it's possible to RE-install on the same console if I should decide to sell the console, that's okay in my book...downloadable games as long as they're somewhat transferable...is the future and the way to go, I love not having to SWITCH between CDs all the time.
So there you have it, Sony Or Microsoft won't get my money this time as they've chosen the wrong way - excessive greed.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
The not-so-secret to Sony's continued success: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...
This is just the latest blast of greed from Sony with this console.
I purchased a PS4 just a week or two ago, after holding out this long with our aging PS3 system -- under the assumption it would be a worth successor. In a few ways, it is. Certainly, the new DualShock controllers are one of the highlights. They're more comfortable to hold, have the ability to plug in headphones and route the game audio through them, have the touch-pad in the middle, different colored lights indicating player 1, 2, 3, etc. Good stuff. But then I discovered you couldn't even download your MP3 music to the PS4 from a memory stick to play it! The only way it seems to allow music playing is via a subscription service! Then you have to pay for the PSNetwork, or else you're pretty much locked out of playing games online. (That was always a reason I preferred PS3 to X-Box in the past... Don't like to pay subscription fees just for the privilege of online play of games I just paid $60 a pop for!)
I'm *almost* surprised Sony didn't tell me that like my satellite TV box, I'm simply renting it from them and must return it when my subscription with them expires!
Sure they do. Just not the customers' hard drives.