If you’re in the US, you might notice a very happy surprise in your inbox in the form of an invite to Sony’s PlayStation Now beta test, which aims to test the service offering streaming PS3 games, set to launch later this year in America and next year in Europe.
The email (which can be seen at the bottom of the post) explains the service so:
PlayStation Now is an exciting new game streaming service featuring instant access to a library of popular PlayStation 3 titles with no downloads or trips to the store required.
Naturally, players are invited to share their feedback with the PlayStation Now team, and once accepted should receive an email with access instructions.
It appears to be for PS3 players, with the email suggesting that you plug your PS3 in with an ethernet connection of over 5Mbps or higher, which is still a really impressively low threshold for streaming video games.
Source: NeoGAF
3shirts
Cool. Be interested to hear the feedback as it starts to come out. If they can pull this off well, it’ll be a killer service.
Cron_13
Yeah I’m with you on that one – I’d be very interested if it meant I could play TLoU at last! Even my crappy broadband exceeds their listing for recommended specs so I’m very interested to see what the feedback is.
MrYd
5Mbps?? Trying to work out if that’s good or not.
Top quality, 1080 streams on Netflix are about 5.5Mbps (I think, although they might have changed it a bit). Now, you can probably get away with 720 instead of 1080 (for PS3 games, at least). Giving you somewhat less pixels, and a rate of about 2.5Mbps. But you might want a few more fps. 30 instead of 25? Giving you close to 3Mbps.
Upstream data (controller inputs) is going to be a trivial amount.
Those top quality (the “SuperHD”) Netflix streams are very good. So 5Mbps for PS3 games seems a bit more than you’d generally need. If you’re happy to stick with 720. Which is fine for the vast majority of PS3 games.
If you’re going for 1080, it might just be OK as a minimum. If you’re going for 1080 and 60fps, it’s going to look shit.
At least it’s below the average connection speed for the UK.
The “or higher” thing lets them off nicely though. You’re not going to get the “best experience” at 5Mbps. You’ll get something vaguely acceptable, and you’ll definitely really be wanting your “or higher” there.
Cron_13
I was thinking the same. Looking at a recent OFCOM report:
http://media.ofcom.org.uk/2013/08/07/average-uk-broadband-speed-continues-to-rise/
Its shows that in May 2013, the average UK broadband speed was now 14.7Mbit/s – which is far in excess of their recommended speed. Me personally, I get 11.3Mbit/s through SKY broadband (with no plans for BT to install fibre! :( boo) which should be ok. I’ve got a few friends who live up in Yorkshire (near Halifax) who only get 3Mbit/s and that’s after a recent exchange update so I think Sony will have trouble in some UK areas even with a 5Mbit/s recommendation.
We need BT to get their fingers out with exchange improvements and fibre rollout – I’m not sure about the US, but it seems that there are some massive variances across the UK which will cause Sony some headaches with PSNOW at the moment.
mrfodder
I think the service tops out at 720p30. 60fps is pointless due latency in the network connection and 1080p would just take too long to encode/decode causing more latency.
Foxhound_Solid
Would love to have been included in this Beta!
BrendanCalls
Hmm!!
The most interesting part is that at first look it appears only open to PS3 users. I wonder if that is because the email is tailored to each user and changes PS3 to PS4 depending on what there registered system is
FluBBa
The beta is only for PS3, probably ’cause they have developed the software for the PS3 longer.
dizwod
Still want to know how they are going to price these.
Discounts/free if you own the disc already? as cant see many people using this if they have the games and a PS3 already
Amphlett
I’m slightly surprised that they’ve bought the beta out so quickly, I was expecting a date later in the year. Well done Sony.
sully1311
Why? They said the beta would roll out this month!
camdaz
By the time it’s released here my area should have been upgraded to fibre optics, so internet speeds shouldn’t be a problem. Just hope iNorthumberland keep to their schedule.