PlayStation Now Heads Into Open Beta In The UK

After a few months of closed beta testing in the UK, Sony’s cloud-based gaming service, PlayStation Now, is heading into an open beta phase as of today, letting you dip into a selection of PlayStation 3 games, whether you own the console or not.

Funnily enough, you’ll actually be able to stream PS Now games to the PlayStation 3, in addition to its more natural home as a window into backwards compatibility on the PlayStation 4 and as a neat feature on certain Bravia TVs and Sony Blu-ray players. In fact, purchasers of specific 4K Bravia TVs before the end of August will be able to claim a free DualShock 4 and 30 day rentals of six games. These include Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, The Last of Us, Motorstorm Apocalypse, Everybody’s Golf, Ratchet & Clank: Nexus, and Lemmings.

For the rest of us, we have to pay to rent a title for between 48 hours and 30 days, with prices ranging from £2.99 to £7.99, which can feel very, very pricey when you can pick up a game so many of these games on the cheap and play them natively on a PS3. Of course, that’s something that Sony struggled with in the US almost a year ago, and we will see subscriptions added in the UK later this summer, likely in line with the $19.99 per month/$44.99 for 3 months pricing that is in place in North America.

Source: press release

23 Comments

  1. Pricing is the biggest issue at the moment.
    I was lucky enough to try the closed beta when it allowed you to try games for free and I was really impressed how playable most of the games were. Some genres are better suited to streaming but overall the service is impressive.
    If the subscription service has a good number of games and is reasonably priced I will give it serious consideration.

  2. I was also on the closed UK beta, the technology is fantastic as long as you have a good internet connection. The only thing that would stop me using it regularly is the current pricing models, there should be a subscription price and I believe in order to keep up with the competition they should offer games you own for free through the service (PS4 answer to backwards compatability)all the need to do is to check your trophy in order to do this!

    • I’ve got plenty of games I didn’t own in my trophy list either borrowed from a friend or rented from LoveFilm etc.

    • If you own the game and it was bought via the Playstation Store it should be available to play for free or they should at the very least have it run via subscription model like Netflix or NowTV. It is massively overpriced for what it is.

    • My main concern about PS Now was how well the image held up and whether or not there was any artifacting in the quality. It was noticeable when I used to use OnLive for the two months I could endure the service, so I’m hoping that Sony have addressed that issue.

  3. No Vita support?

    • Not yet. I think there is in the US already, but it’s all about a gradual roll out of features, and Vita and PS TV support are still a way off in the UK,

      • It’s a shame (but no surprise) Vita is last in line… Still makes more sense than PS3 access in some regards!

  4. I had the invite via email the other day. I didn’t try it out because I’m not paying them to rent a game for them to test the service. Also, what happens when the network goes down, which it does at an alarming rate? Three times already this month. I think Sony should focus on beefing up the network before releasing a service that relies on it.

  5. Let me just put a few points out there…
    This is a BETA, meaning that Sony want our participation in order to help test their service.
    The games are all PS3 at very top, no PS4 games.
    I have to pay to rent a PS3 game.
    The service goes down frequently.

    Hmmm, I’ll give it a miss until there’s something from the PS4 line up I want to play. I’m also certainly not paying money to help a company test their service.

    • This exactly.

      The early access scene might work on the PC but this is cheeky. Renting games to test a “open beta”

    • “Beta” in this case just means that you should be a little forgiving of minor flaws – obviously as a paying customer, if there’s a major outage or downtime, you should expect recompense. It’s already been through an extensive closed beta test, both in the US and the UK, and has since exited all beta phases in the US.

      While a very different service, Gmail was in beta from launch in 2004 until 2009. The term has certain connotations, but is often used very loosely.

      • I think Google maps is still technically in beta aswell, I remember the beta logo was disabled by default though, you could put it there if you wish.

  6. I was impressed with the closed beta but haven’t paid any money to rent a game as they are just too pricey.

  7. This entire service seems to live in the same vacuum of ignorance that PSN store pricing has lived in for years. Convenience is part of what sells this but not at a price over and above owning the game.

    £10 a month for basic tier unlimited, £15 for top, £20 for ‘new’ releases and then maybe we will talk.

  8. I got lucky a couple of weeks ago Rachet and Clank into the nexus was free in closed beta randomly. So I just tried it out on my unwired Ps3 all I can say it has reminded me of playing worn out videos constantly slowing down of video and audio. I do intend to continue with playing through on my wired Ps4 which I have had very little problem on there. I’m guessing Vita won’t fair to well on Ps Now either.

  9. So if i rent a game do i get the trophies over again having already got them on the PS3?

    • No, because they’re just running the exact same PS3 version on their servers and streaming it to you.

      However (although I didn’t try it in the closed beta), if you’ve played the game previously, it’s supposed to be able to use the same save. If you upload it to the cloud with PS+ from a real PS3, you can then download that same save into the PS Now version. It works just like a real PS3 in that way. Except it won’t do it automatically, and the cut down version of the XMB is a bit odd the first time you see it.

  10. no one should support PS Now. if you do theres a very good chance that PS5 will be streaming only.

    • Is that a problem? If in 5 or 6 years time enough people have decent enough internet connections? (Currently, PS Now needs something well below the average connection speed in the UK. But a significant number of people have much slower connections. That average is dragged up by stupidly fast connections)

      Should nobody support Netflix because in future you might only be able to stream films and TV?

      What will eventually happen is you’ll only be able to download _or_ stream things. Which is good. Give it a few years and everyone should have a fast enough connection that there’s no need to put this stuff on a small lump of plastic and send them on long journeys.

      I’d say at least a 50% chance that the PS5 only does streaming or downloads. Really not going to be a problem by the time it happens though.

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