PSNow got its PC release today, and I gave it a try after updating my old PS account. Thanks to the one-week trial period I'll probably be able to play at least through the Last of Us within that time span - yup, seems like most people jumped on that one.

Anyway, after playing LoU for about two hours I must say: it ain't bad, especially for something a lot of PC people are probably jumping on release day. There were some minor streaming hiccups on occasion in the beginning but things seem to have become pretty smooth later.

- There's a teensy bit of input lag, for obvious reasons, but it hasn't detracted much from gameplay. For something more slower paced and something that doesn't need super accuracy it works just fine. I doubt fighting games would be much fun on it though. Heh.
- It plays perfectly with my wired Xbox 360 pad, including rumble. It's just a matter of the remembering what button to associate with the on-screen prompts. ;)
- Now it doesn't look as crisp as it would as on an actual PS3. It's a bit murky due to the video compression, making something that wasn't all that high-def to begin with even a bit less stellar, but once I got totally into the game I barely even noticed. Yeah, it does look a bit pre-PS3 generation just with more detail. Take from that what you want.
- The initial longer loading time does seem like they're actually using PS3-like equipment, but once in game there was nary a pause even when being thrown back to a checkpoint due to dying stupidly.

All in all, not bad. Not bad at all.

Nice review. :-)

That seems bad for DRM-free games, however :/

What's your line speed, by the way?

Well, it's not like you'd be able to play these otherwise without a ps3 system. :P

The problem is with a market for this, it may exapnd to other games. "Why release a DRM free version when people will pay us for access that we can control?"

It's a bad sign, IMO. The fact that it looks worse and plays worse is a good sign, but how long until that's completely, or nearly completely fixed?

It might in the future, considering right now some genres like Fighting games are unplayable with it I'm not all that worried.

We shall see how popular this actually gets, streaming games has failed before.

I would refuse to use Playstation Now out of principle. No matter how good a service it is, there are fundamental problems, namely there's no possible ownership of a game you are paying for.

Hopefully this is SONY just testing us PC gamers seeing how much money we give them.

If SONY sees it successful earning millions of dollars (USD), hopefully they end up releasing all of their PlayStation (PS), PlayStation 2 (PS2), and PlayStation 3 (PS3) exclusive video games natively for sale for PC on both gog.com and Steam.

You're not buying these games, just renting them. If you pay for Netflix, do you expect ownership of what you watch?

If I didn't already own a PS3, I would probably pay the $99/year for this service. I don't know if I would go past the first year though.

I like the idea of it. I don't want to buy a PlayStation and my console itch doesn't last very long. This way I can pick it up for a short while and then drop it without needing a large upfront investment.

That said, I don't think that the game is want to play are on it yet. Ace Combat. 3/4 and some Gundam games.

I'd want the same level of freedom to record videos/shows as though i was watching it on TV and recording using VCR... So... yes i expect to keep ownership.

Although it depends on if there's a need to re-watch it ever again...

Isn't that one of the main reasons to explain the lack of so many titles in GOG catalog? That very question may be referred to DRM and even so here we are, in a DRM-free store, there are still some publishers convinced that it's worth to publish without DRM.

Except that doesn't make any lick of sense from a business perspective; if their streaming service is successful then... they will release more games on their streaming service.

Why waste time, money and resources creating native PC version of their games if PC Gamers don't mind using the streaming service which require minimal effort, no middleman (no need to pay 30% to Steam) and is 100% piracy proof, that would be a very silly business decision.

If anything I would say the more success full a service like PSNow is the less likely you are to ever see Sony consider porting their exclusive games to other platforms.

Hey op, maybe you can answer a doubt that i had in a conversation with a friend, is there someway to limit the amount of trials/accounts you can have? I mean, longer games like jrpgs can't be completed in a week (unless you have a lot of free time) but smaller games (8~15 hours) is possible, so, what stops a player from creating an account for 1 week trial, another account for another week and so on? Or they're just trying to make profit with the service since they wasted $380 million purchasing gaikai and it clearly isn't making money with the initial plataform, ps4 (because folks want a real bc system and not a shitty expensive rental service).

I agree. PS NOW looks rad, though.
Not owning something is pretty dull to me, man.
Felt the same when someone pulled YO GABBA GABBA from Netflix! Bastards! :P