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PlayStation Now announced (PS1/2/3 streaming to TVs/Tablets/Phones/PSes, Summer 2014)

Oh sure, just play it on a platform that can't really connect to a modern TV without finding a rare RGB cord from Japan and then run it through some converter to get it to my TV. Luckily PS2 can play PS1 games, but PS2 will not last forever. It's no longer being manufactured. The consoles that are out there in the wild will eventually die.

It's not immoral or unethical, it's just disappointing that this could signal Sony dropping the framework Sony set up to preserve the titles they put up on PSN and the ability to play physical titles with the emulator. If the service completely overrides emulation, then something will be lost.

you mean like playing an lp right now? you need special hardware to play lps, and the digital versions of those old songs are up on itunes for purchase right now even if you did own the lp of the beatles' "let it be".

the service will replace emulation. sony was not putting up a framework. that was their solution for that time. they weren't "preserving titles". what are you on about? it was a solution to the ps3's lack of ps2. it wasn't so you can play ps1 games forever.
 
what are you talking about? of course it'll always be online. it's streaming games.

they have local emulators? there was never a ps2 emulator. the 80gb ps3 had a ps2 inside it, and the 60 gb only had the emotion engine (cpu) in it, so it's not fully software-emulated. even then, the 60gb ran into problems with a lot of ps2 games.

sony can not possibly qa all 2000+ ps2 games for compatibility, let alone games from ps1,2, 3, and beyond. that'd be stupid to do.

those ps2 games on the psn were qa'd and bugged to work on a ps3, you can't call those simply as emulation, even emulation alone is hard to pull off on different architecture.

this is the only viable solution for bc. period.

Actually every PS3 after that 80GB has a full software emulator in it. Even super slims have it. It's due to teh PS2 classics that were sold on PSN. If you have a CFW PS3 you can exploit that and play some game ISOs, but there isn't full compatibility with every game.

Sony must have something up their sleeves for PS1/PS2 emulation at least for people that have PS4s/PS3s
 

Eusis

Member
what irks me the most are people thinking they have the game therefore they should be able to use it on future devices. seriously? they didn't make that game during that time so you can play it 20 years ahead on a newer device. they made the game so you can play it on that device. the reasoning of "oh but it's more powerful" is just plain ridiculous. even today you need a powerful pc to emulate saturn, let alone a freaking ps3.
For PS3 I understand they have to go with this with the next best option being making the PS3 as cheap as reasonably possible then keeping it in production for as long as people will buy it (which is just an obvious thing to do anyway) but downloaded software is a new wrinkle with the likes of Valve and Apple setting the standard, and the move to x86 may well be partially to have a superior forward compatible setup rather than constantly going after exotic but ultimately dead end hardware. Hell, Sony's already going that path to some extent with cross buy and the Vita's BC.

And given the PSP and Vita it's not unreasonable to me to expect an emulator of PS1 on PS4. And it's a bridge that will have to be crossed inevitably: streaming off the cloud is not a magic solution in the slightest. Dedicated hardware will be needed on their end, and it may be more practical in the end to just emulate something like PS1 games on a server rather than a PS3 or whatever, and that will require an emulator on that server, and if that will be one that can run PS4 games in a more efficient manner then it may as well go out to consoles to lighten the load. It's not like it's a hard system to emulate, we had unofficial ones in the late 90s and the PSP's is near perfect on a much weaker system. With Sony's resources I imagine something for x86 can be made and used.
 
D

Deleted member 1235

Unconfirmed Member
weird, this kind of tech news I'm extremely excited about, despite knowing I will probably never use the service itself.

Virtual shit just sort of tickles the tech nerd in me.
 
Eventually the service will expand beyond PlayStation platforms and Sony devices

If this ever comes to Android I will be one hell of a happy Shield owner. And the Ouya would be a viable system again!
Still not buying one.
 

IrishNinja

Member
Sega Channel was an invention far ahead of its time. It was basically Xbox Live or PSN for the early 90's generation. In fact Sega Channel operated quite similar to PS Now in that, for a flat fee of $15 a month, users could download any one of 50 available games to their Mega Drive. As usual Sega were the innovators of much of what we take for granted today.

+1, couldn't have said it better myself: Sega.net was the bones of XBL too. really shows you how important timing is to innovation as well.
 
Hot tip: while the service starts this summer it's not about this summer. Is the world ready for cloud gaming? Nope. Who wins cloud gaming when it is? The company that is the most experienced.


Everyone looking at this *solely* as a this year thing doesn't get it.
 
Sony really needs to upgrade their servers before this launches. The recent downtimes show they aren't ready to host something like this yet.
 

Achamian

Member
Sony really needs to upgrade their servers before this launches. The recent downtimes show they aren't ready to host something like this yet.

Or perhaps that downtime is all tied in to their readying the network for summer? I'm sure its not an overnight job.
 

Eusis

Member
Hot tip: while the service starts this summer it's not about this summer. Is the world ready for cloud gaming? Nope. Who wins cloud gaming when it is? The company that is the most experienced.


Everyone looking at this *solely* as a this year thing doesn't get it.
This is probably also a larger milestone, and one likely to be more relevant to gaming at that. Microsoft seems to be really far along on that front, but it's mostly for business purposes and who knows if that'll even translate over.

Meanwhile Nintendo... actually, if they have most of their success on handheld I question how relevant it'd ever be for them anyway.
 

klaus

Member
Pretty much any digital video game purchase is a rental. You don't own anything you buy from a digital platform.

Totally. It really hurts me that I have to pay for the copy of Gauntlet I bought 8 years ago on XBL again and again to be able to play it. Oh wait..
 

mechphree

Member
I see this more beneficial to ps4 owners then anything. You can now buy the last of us and stream it on your ps4 or even god of war. Only thing I'm worried about is latency and those internet requirements. I tried onlive before and it was not a good experience. I hope Gaikai can really deliver.

I'm also interested in pricing. Will they have it month to month with all the games you want?
 

Dead Man

Member
Fortunately I believe Sony is done with exotics hardware architecture. So any machine they put out going forward will be 86x based so going forwards, backwards compatability shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Not technically, but it will never be a console feature again. Especially if this takes off.
 
Could this reinvigorate Japanese developers? Are there cost cuts in releasing games this way and can it lead to more translations and Western versions?
 

Eusis

Member
Could this reinvigorate Japanese developers? Are there cost cuts in releasing games this way and can it lead to more translations and Western versions?
Probably not. So far this seems to be limited to PS1-3 games, and any of those could've been translated and released digitally for probably the same exact costs.
 
This is probably only gonna be good for RPGs and other slow stuff, because I can't imagine a cloud-based service being able to deliver a 60 fps experience. During my trial with Onlive I tried out Unreal Tournament and it was a nightmare to say the least. And if my time with Netflix is anything to go by resolution will be hit. The good news is that none of the big ISPs own any stake in video games so they won't be throttling internet connections to dissuade people from using the service.
 
you mean like playing an lp right now? you need special hardware to play lps, and the digital versions of those old songs are up on itunes for purchase right now even if you did own the lp of the beatles' "let it be".

the service will replace emulation. sony was not putting up a framework. that was their solution for that time. they weren't "preserving titles". what are you on about? it was a solution to the ps3's lack of ps2. it wasn't so you can play ps1 games forever.

Music is incomparable to videogames. Getting a game functioning is not the same as something so universal as sound.

I'm mostly talking about PS1 titles here, which Sony has emulated and uploaded on PSP, PS3, and PS Vita. If my ability to buy Parasite Eve on PSP, download it on PS3, and transfer it to PS Vita isn't apart of a framework, then what is it? Furthermore, are we to believe that the PS1 titles accessed through the service aren't being emulated?

As far as reasons go, of course Sony wanted to be able to profit off of old games on their service and compete with Nintendo's virtual console as a service. I'm not going to pretend that Sony was on some mission to save games. But amassing a digital library on the PS3 and PSP that carried over to PSV ... surely that's an incentive to stay within the ecosystem and the library you build up. Stepping back from Sony's position for the moment, it's a shitty place to be in for those who love and enjoy older games. And no, that's not the same as loving physical audio or video media.

How would you see ready access to aging, decades-old, multi-platform back catalogs working otherwise at this point?

Probably with whatever emulator(s) they're using for this. Edit: Oh, I guess they're probably using something quite a bit more powerful than whatever Playstation products they're putting out.
 

DrunkDan

Member
So all I need now is some sort of 'Remote Play' or 'Playstation Now' titled add on for the Vita that adds proper buttons for l2/3 and r2/3, possibly using that mysterious port.

Or even using some sort of arms that touch the rear touchpad a la some of the homemade solutions. Some of the modded Vita grips are pretty good. I'm sure an official solution would be even slicker.

Make it happen Sony.
 
Oh man, thia is the kind of crap that will never come out in Belgium. This county is really annoying. We don't have Netflix, Hulu or even Amazon lol. Fuck me
 

spoonman

Banned
Our internet sucks when it rains. I guess I will have to schedule my PS1 classic game time for sunny days.

Seriously though, PS1-PS2 games should be emulated locally on the PS4. There is no reason why it shouldn't be.
I'll take low level emulation over slightly laggy and blurry streaming any day.
 

Bojanglez

The Amiga Brotherhood
What are the chances of them adding trophies to ps1 & ps2 games?

I remember Sony patenting a method of retrospectively activating trophies based on certain disc spinning patterns, wonder if the emulator could do something similar with data patterns coming from the server.
 
This is a typo right? Sorry if it's been cleared up cba to go through all these pages but I saw this in the comments in the blog so it must be a typo right.

5Mbps+ as the guy he replied to said he had a 3-5Mbps connection. +50Mbps can't be the recommended speed, its overkill.
 
Sorry if this has already been mentioned, but any idea yet if this is going to be pure streaming, or will they let you download certain games for offline use? I hope I can get a completely portable version of Fire Pro Returns on my Vita.
 

Thrakier

Member
There is probably more difference between Netflix SD and Bluray than PS3 games streamed or native... especially since this is focused on tablets and smartphones where people play shit games or even shittier ports.

Are you serious? But then again, there are people who enjoy Resogun @30FPS on their Vita. Really, there is not much to discuss when it comes to quality standards. Some people just don't have them.

As to Sony investing into this instead of VR? That is simply not true. If anything, success of something like this would enable Sony to continue investing into fringe products and money losers such as VR. Heck, this will probably end up with Sony finally making money from the gaming after all these years.

May or may not be true. We will never know, I guess. I can only judge what I'm being offered - and in this case, it's completly uninteresting. If you want me to replay my old games AND pay for them again, then at least make sure that they are in a better consitution then before, like HD remake. Last of Us at 1080p/60FPS I would play. Last of Us, which was already a technical mess in it's original state to begin with, with added lag and even lesser resolution? No, thanks.

I can see how this may be convenient for a casual market. But why do gamers get excited about this, I don't understand. Then again, I am under the impression for a longer time already that most people here on GAF are actually casual gamers.
 
This is really exciting stuff. The performance will of course be less than ideal for while, but everything has to start somewhere. Network speeds will improve going forward, so this seems like the delivery system that will become the future. It is instant-gaming for the consumer, who also doesn't need to bothered anymore by updates and installs. For publishers this is the ultimate form of DRM, as it's always-only and the consumer doesn't own anything but a license to play.

The only thing that will make me pass on this for the foreseeable future is the fact that I have pretty strict bandwidth caps in my country. The prospect of DDoS attacks taking away my ability to Parappa seems sad too.

I'm interested in seeing what the initial library will be.
 

Jaroof

Member
This sounds amazing! Hope I can try out the beta.

Also, I wish there would be some way to add your disc games to your cloud collection..
like, if a person were to put a disc in their system, it would add it to their online collection.
But I guess people would abuse that.
 

QaaQer

Member
i wonder how they are running these games? emulation or dedicated hardware?

why not make ps4 be able to run ps1 discs? i know its capable of emulating a ps1. Anyone know if PS4 would be able to emulate a PS2? so far on PC it requires lots of CPU speed so i am guessing the ps4 is not able to do it.

How would they make money off of that? Start printing ps1&2 discs again? You do know businesses are in business to make money right?
 

Eusis

Member
How would they make money off of that? Start printing ps1&2 discs again? You do know businesses are in business to make money right?
Given the cost of disc manufacture that's probably actually relatively affordable, it's actually probably damned more by spread and demand in NA, even Japan kept at PS1 games for quite awhile and I get the impression they can be printed again if desire though more and more I think digital codes would be preferred and usually those reprints are for packages.

And the practical solution would be what the PS3 did; it can run PS1 discs, but it also ran digital copies from the store. That's what they'd put out to make money on.
 

Beelzebubs

Member
Couldn't you just emulate an android device to get this running on a PC? It's easy enough to do and you can add controller support using apps on the virtual machine.
 

CCS

Banned
I really hope us European peasants get this reasonably soon after the US launch. I have a horrible feeling we'll be waiting a looooong time.
 

gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
I kind of wonder if this confirms that games are running off of emulated hardware. I mean, they have to be, right?

Not necessarily.

But I do think whatever OS they're working with is at least quite different from the regular PS3 OS.

I mean think about it. If you have a rack of PS3s there, they each need to be able to play any PS3 game in the catalog pretty pronto.

So I guess they read games off some shared network storage rather than anything local to the machine.

Now let's extend from that, that it's not simply loading a game as normal, but perhaps is saving and loading individual snapshots of games for a given player.

Perhaps that's what was happening here. It loaded a snapshot of a game in progress for the user signed in, able to resume the game more quickly.
 

I Wanna Be The Guy

U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!
I wonder if after this launches Sony will launch a new Xperia Play type smartphone that supports PS Now. With this service and a good amont of games from various PS platforms maybe a PS Phone would actually stand a chance. Then again I suppose the people that really care about PS gaming on the go would probably rather just go with the Vita.
 
what are you talking about? of course it'll always be online. it's streaming games.

they have local emulators? there was never a ps2 emulator. the 80gb ps3 had a ps2 inside it, and the 60 gb only had the emotion engine (cpu) in it, so it's not fully software-emulated. even then, the 60gb ran into problems with a lot of ps2 games.

sony can not possibly qa all 2000+ ps2 games for compatibility, let alone games from ps1,2, 3, and beyond. that'd be stupid to do.

those ps2 games on the psn were qa'd and bugged to work on a ps3, you can't call those simply as emulation, even emulation alone is hard to pull off on different architecture.

this is the only viable solution for bc. period.
You have no idea what you're talking about
 

gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
There is an interesting interview with John Koller here on the direction for the service.

http://www.computerandvideogames.co...ler-on-playstation-nows-streaming-revolution/


We've been very open and bullish on physical consoles. So I don't think PS Now necessarily disenfranchises future consoles in any way. But it does, I think, show our willingness to try and focus on content as primary. Really, again, focussing on the gamer first - obviously they want great content, great experiences. Those experiences can be had in many different places. So it's more of an open position now.

It needs to go through the DualShock. The DualShock remains the key ingredient. So that controller experience needs to go perfectly. We didn't want to utilise touch screen or anything like that because the games are best played with a DualShock.

So it requires the DualShock 3 on any platform PS Now comes to?

Yes it requires the DualShock. The DualShock 3 specifically. To enable tablet and smartphone play, you've got to have the DualShock 3.

[A Sony spokesperson chimed in at this point to clarify that a DualShock 3 is not required for PS Now play on PS4, with which a DualShock 4 will be usable].

What's the pipeline for bringing PS4 game streaming to PS Now?

[SCE president and CEO] Andy House mentioned this morning PS3 first, and then PS1, PS2 and PS4 to come later. So over time... what we're going to do is we have a beta coming in a couple of weeks; we're going to look at how PS3 works best. And PS3 will be the tip of the spear. We'll see how it scales, the business model, all those things. We have other territories to launch in over time. And then we'll start looking at how we can piece together other content.

First and third-party?

First and third. We're going to try and bring in the library if we can. We'll see how this works. I mean, we need to make sure that the experience that you had today with low latency and a really seamless environment works across those games. So there's a lot of testing still to be done.

On that note, do you have the potential for a user to put a PS3 disc into a PS4 to verify that they own or have the game, and for this to unlock the game for play via streaming?

We... uh, initially, no. So, we're saying no to that right now.

Is that something that's being investigated? Is it possible?

Right now, no.
 
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