For a little more than a month, the PlayStation Now Open Beta has allowed PS4 users to quickly access and play games from a rich and expanding library of PS3 titles directly from our cloud servers, without the need to wait for game downloads, installs, or patches. I am happy to announce that the Open Beta will be available to PS3 users* in mainland U.S. and parts of Canada starting today.
PS3 users will now see PS Now titles integrated into PlayStation Store as part of the Open Beta. The library of PS Now games has grown to more than 150 titles, and will continue to grow as the service expands over time. I’m pleased to announce that God of War: Ascension, inFAMOUS, and the recently released Ultra Street Fighter IV are all coming soon to PS Now.
PS Now offers a variety of rental periods depending on the game, and in most cases, you can rent a game for an entire week for about $1 a day.
We are still in the early days of PS Now, but it’s been great to hear from users that have been pleased with the service’s performance. We want to thank everyone who has tried out PlayStation Now and encourage everyone to check it out. The service is still growing and evolving based on the feedback we’ve received from PS Now users. We recently reduced the pricing for select 4-hour rentals, and we are still working towards a PS Now subscription option.
We will continue to collect feedback from PS3 and PS4 system Open Beta users and refine the service, so please keep your feedback coming!
*Service not available in all areas. A steady broadband connection greater than 5Mbps hardwired is HIGHLY recommended. See us.playstation.com/playstationnow for details.
I understand having Now for allowing people to play PS3 games on PS4, something no one can duplicate by renting from Gamefly. Let me spell that out for people who keep saying Gamefly is cheaper: Yes, but you can only rent PS3 games for your PS3 from Gamefly. You can’t put that rental disc in your PS4. So your argument is simply nonsensical.
However, PS3 games streamed to my PS3? I still have 2 PS3’s. In this instance, the Gamefly argument makes sense.
I will probably use this service once you expand to older games. I would try 1 day rentals of PS1 and PS2 games, to try them out, since they are both hard to find in the real world and I usually don’t like them after playing for half an hour.
I really think they should offer discounts on or free rentals for games you already own through PSN. I mean, we get why you had to cut out backwards compatibility, but we shouldn’t have to pay again for it.
And still nothing on a Vita beta? Come on guys.
Sony has a real possibility to reverse their ugly financial situation here. If they can figure out a way to more or less match the price structure of Netflix, this can be a gold mine. Screw up the subscription pricing and they’ll be scratching their heads the same way they do when they ask themselves what went wrong with the Vita.
The prices has gone down a bit for a lot of games, like Final Fantasy and Rainbow Moon.
Most sports games, if any, are still overpriced. (but yiu have the league themselves + dev + publisher + Sony) I don’t care for sports games.
A lot of people would like monthly rental options or even Permanent purchases of a stream version of the game. Not sure how that purchased version would work.
FALLOUT 4 for PS4, pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! if they make an HD remake for it, i would pay $100 day one, no questions asked. Imagine being able to play it on your PS vita anywhere, how sick would that be? Please make that happen.
Not going to support ths service,
and you should not either.
It’s clearly a money scheme, by withholding backwards compatibility thereby taking advantage of past digital purchases.
I also refuse to buy a PS4 untill this changes.
God of War Ascension was $10 bucks through Plus in the past, but $7 a week to rent on a service requiring online to play it?
No thanks.
Vita when?
Lots of ignorance up in these comments. lol, but that’s to be expected in any comment section about PS Now.
If you have so much extra money and no priorities, be my guest and throw it at them.
As for me, my budget, and my four sons, it has always been about value for me.
I love Plus even with all the Indies / PC ports, but with PS Plus sales or services like Steam, Gamefly, Redbox ,
again No Thanks.
Its digital with no resale, if you stayed up to date with pricing slightly lower than average used copies (Dishonored for Example, though many many others), you would increase sales and cut out the middlemen.
Not too mention making alot of potentially long term loyal customers VERY VERY HAPPY.
Anyway,
Hope you make the right decision.
Haha BETA! And u are charging for a stress test; no way SONY!
Want me to test for you, give me a couple of titles for free.
#58 @Elvick
Why don’t you just go back to paying entirely too much for something and think in your own mind that makes you elite or special, and not just merely mentally deficient.
Some people actually work very hard for the money they actually earn instead of getting it from the subordinates that do all the work, or from mommy and daddy.
You want to give away your money, be my guest, but claiming ignorance about common sense.
………ROFL
There are better charities out there, not too mention advice.
As for Sony, you have my respect for not tampering with the rating of the post.
At the very least.
Will Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns Of The Patriots be available in this service??? because I had every Playstation except for Playstation 3 and I missed out on MGS4 and would love to play it and I know that MGS4 will take more that 7 days to beat because it is a long game and the reason why I never got the PS3 is because at the time it came out it was too expensive and Xbox 360 was cheaper so I got that instead but I am working on getting PS4 and I have a Vita right now so hopefully I can play MGS4 on there through PS Now through the cloud server I am also looking forward to playing God Of War 3 and Ascension
What the heck is this, I can get better deals at Redbox even if they don’t have a library of games but at least they have the brand new ones always out first. Gamefly is even the best renting option then this horrible waste of time and money for jacked up price over scam. Sony THINK, about what your consumers want and don’t thrash them around with this bull, we made you who are today. We want better and frankly this is the worst I ever seen. If I don’t want to buy a game I’ll either Redbox to try it then Gamefly to keep as long as I can. This is embarrassing, I’ll never touch this not worth a cent unless you guys get your it together.
Really, I love my PS3 to death but bottom line its 8 years old in 2 months and according to Playstaion only has a shelf life of 10 years so you guys might want to be thinking PS4 pretty soon. we should of had this years ago.. IT’s Delaystation all over again I’m kidding (maybe) :)
When can we expect Ratchet and Clank: Into the Nexus? It was announced for PS Now a while ago, but we still can’t play it yet.
What a big upset this is. Rent a game… WHY RENT JUST CAUSE 2 FOR 5.99 FOR 5 DAYS OR WHATEVER WHEN YOU CAN BUY JUST CAUSE 2 OFF OF STEAM FOR ALMOST THAT PRICE. This is ridiculous. I really regret buying a Playstation 4. This is a horrible concept. Let us just BUY and own these games Sony. WTF… renting… get out of here with this ****.
What a big upset this is. Rent a game… WHY RENT JUST CAUSE 2 FOR 5.99 FOR 5 DAYS OR WHATEVER WHEN YOU CAN BUY JUST CAUSE 2 OFF OF STEAM FOR ALMOST THAT PRICE. This is ridiculous. I really regret buying a Playstation 4. This is a horrible concept. Let us just BUY and own these games Sony. you kidding me… renting… get the heck out of here with this…
I still haven’t checked this service out but at some point I might use this service but it more for casual gamers. But still cool to have options 7 the service is still evolving.
How about instead of charging for games we already purchased digitally, we aren’t charged again for the same game?
As much as I find the renting idea good, might encourage people to buy the real game, I really don’t want this to undermine native legacy support.
I, specifically, don’t want to rent games. I want to own them. Good or bad as long as it interests me.
PSNow is not a substitute to, say, buying a PS1/PS2 classic.
I can’t have a stream capable internet connection most of the time (regardig it’s future vita and mobile application) for whenever I do, its exclusively at home.
I much rather buy my favorite legacy games to own.
PSNow has the potential to be a huge success if Sony makes it a true Netflix for games, with a monthly subscription for a reasonable price, just like with Netflix. I believe a monthly subscription granting access to all of the games on PSNow would absolutely be hugely successful. Do it Sony!
Also, get PS1 and PS2 games on there. SOCOM 2 with online intact and the buzz surrounding that would make this service insanely popular and well subscribed to. Do it!
So does this mean that the PS Vita beta for PS Now will be released next month? If so, then I can’t wait!:D
be better if it was like $1 or $2 a week for rental or have something like a subscription based were you play all games you want for a certain price like $10 a month or something.
@Rezolution77
It’s a Rental Service, not a complete purchase. Tell me, do you always rent your games? Do you keep going over and over to your local Red Box or Gamefly? Of course not, you just buy them.
Nobody’s forcing you to use the service, it’s an option.
If that’s the reason why you won’t buy a PS4, then you probably weren’t going to buy one in the first place.
The best way to play PS3 games is on your PS3.
These are the reasons why we PS PLUS users are getting only INDIE games on PS3.
I think that if Sony shifted their Playstation Now pricing brackets over by one, they might hit the sweet spot where Playstation Now could be a popular and profitable service. Right now, Enslaved is $3 for 4 hours, $6 for 7 days, $8 for 30 days, and $15 for 90 days. However, 4 hours is really nothing more than a demo, which is usually free, so why I’d want to whip out my credit card for that, I don’t know. Meanwhile, at $15 I could literally buy the game from Amazon (less, actually), so why would I pay $15 just to have it for 90 days? This is true of a lot of games on Playstation Now.
On the other hand, a pricing strategy shifted over a bracket would look like this: Free for 4 hours, $3 for 7 days, $6 for 30 days, and $8 for 90 days. If you can beat the game in 7 days, $3 is a steal, but if you end up not wanting to play it again, then it is probably good you didn’t pay more. On the other hand if you like it, you’ll probably end up buying it in the future so that you can play it again, so that small $3 entry gets Sony more money later if they keep their full purchase price competitive with Amazon and others.
Frankly, the 30 and 90 days rentals are only applicable for long RPG style games, so they probably won’t be used much, especially since they currently exceed the prices that most games end up at when they go on sale in the Playstation Store, and most people will probably wait for a sale and just pick up the game permanently rather than spend so much on a game they might realize they want later and still have to pay a lot more money to own it.
What would be REALLY cool is if I paid to rent a game for 7 days, then the price I paid will be subtracted from any longer rental or future purchase of that game on Playstation Now or in the Playstation store. Then I’d be less afraid to take the rental plunge knowing that it is counting toward a possible future purchase.
A final suggestion would be to have an even simpler pricing scale: FREE for 4 hours, $5 for a 7 day rental, and then offering a 30 rental at $10 only for games like Assassin’s Creed, Final Fantasy, and others that take months to complete. Many people who might not buy games at full price might find these low prices reasonable for trying out a game. Meanwhile, anyone who is dedicated enough to beat a short game in a week or a long game in 30 days probably really likes the game, and isn’t going to be satisfied with not having it after the rental ends, and in that case, more money is likely coming for Sony, especially if my suggestion in the paragraph directly above is followed.
I’m on cable broadband (100 Mbps).
The video compression is mediocre, the network lag is horrendous and the price plan is laughable. And they want you to believe that cloud gaming is the future. I’ll keep my PS3 thank you very much.
The prices on these rentals are way off. On the PS4 or Vita it’s annoying but understandable because it may be the only way to play the game on that system. The list of PS3 games that could be found cheaper to buy is not making this program look good at all. 3 day rental is way more expensive than buying the games on Flash sale.
This program isn’t going to work until it gets a Netflix style price plan or huge cuts on rental along with purchase option
Why PS Now isn’t available in Asia? Disappointed :(
***Comment #16 by CHMURA_FAMILY, is a brilliant idea.***
Just make sure the 1 free game a month is a good one (ex. don’t choose Baseball Stars 2 or Space Ace).
An instant, 15, 30 or 45 minute demo would be a great option to have for all games on the service (and for all PS4 games on the PS Store). That allows the user to try the game before putting down any money. Also, it shows off the immediacy of the service.
5.1 surround sound would be good.
When is it coming to Vita and PS TV?
When will it come to non-Sony devices?
Can we use a DS4 when we play PS Now through PS TV?
Good to see inFamous and God of War come to the service. Will we see a consistent roll out of first party games to the service? It needs more quality content.
Why was Twisted Metal taken down? Please put it back up.
The $1 a day rental price for 1 week is great. Maybe do $.50 a day for a 1 month rental = $15.
what up