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Is this what PlayStation Now streaming will cost?

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WaitstationNow

While we’re on the subject of South Africa not getting nice things, the chances that we’ll ever see Sony’s PlayStation Now streaming service working well from within the confines of our borders is becoming increasingly slim. If we can’t have a locally-rendered multiplayer game because we’re far from the servers, we’ll never, ever be able to stream games in real-time from servers located halfway around the world. Don’t be too sad though; it doesn’t look like streamed games will be all that cheap.

An image of the service’s potential UI – which looks a heck of a lot like the PlayStation Store – has what’s probably placeholder prices for games, though it could be a look at the ballpark figures of what PlayStation now’s game streaming might cost you.

PS_now

The image comes courtesy of Gaikai’s newly updated site (via VG247) and  suggests you might be able to purchase older games like Far Cry 3 and Uncharted 3 in full for $5.99 and $4.99 each, while something newer like The Last of Us is priced $49.99. Bioshock Infinite seems to be priced at over $50, which is only a sliver less than what you’d pay for a brand new, retail copy of the game. the older games are priced right, but for newer ones that’s a lot of cash for something you wouldn’t be  be able to play if the servers went down. Of course, for those without consoles who’d wish to stream those games directly to a supported television, it might hold some appeal.

I’m actually more inclined to side with Michael Pachter when it comes to PlayStation Now. He recently called the service “a joke.”

“PlayStation Now is a joke. There is no publisher that is going to license content that’s less than two-years old because they would be concerned that they can’t sell as many copies if they make it available for subscription or rental. This has no prayer of working. None.”

Still, for those of us in SA it’s all moot. The underlying technology that powers its streaming is the same that runs the PS4 and Vita’s Remote Play functionality – and that’s not even perfect despite being on the same network.

Last Updated: March 10, 2014

58 Comments

  1. RinceThis

    March 10, 2014 at 13:34

    The cloud is a lie.

    Reply

    • TiMsTeR1033

      March 10, 2014 at 13:38

      and so is global warming! 😛

      Reply

      • Sir Rants A Lot Llew. Jelly!!!

        March 10, 2014 at 13:43

        And so are you… wait.. what?

        Reply

      • RinceThis

        March 10, 2014 at 13:44

        You watch it! Do you have Riptide dude?

        Reply

        • General JJ the Fett

          March 10, 2014 at 13:46

          Only when he doesn’t make it to the bathroom on time.

          Reply

          • RinceThis

            March 10, 2014 at 13:47

            BOOM!

          • Alien Emperor Trevor

            March 10, 2014 at 13:48

            Titanic fail :/

        • TiMsTeR1033

          March 10, 2014 at 13:49

          Nope, but really wanna get it after hearing you were playing it. Dead Island never played co-op.

          Reply

          • General JJ the Fett

            March 10, 2014 at 13:50

            It’s good

          • TiMsTeR1033

            March 10, 2014 at 13:50

            The first one was good, had a few issues but I could over look them easily.

          • RinceThis

            March 10, 2014 at 13:50

            Was a load of fun,. was playing with Werner and Andre/

          • TiMsTeR1033

            March 10, 2014 at 13:50

            Still space for 2 more!

          • RinceThis

            March 10, 2014 at 13:52

            I think you can play with 13 people!

          • ToshZA

            March 10, 2014 at 13:53

            With only 2 hands?

          • TiMsTeR1033

            March 10, 2014 at 13:53

            I thought only 4..

          • RinceThis

            March 10, 2014 at 13:53

            Well the menu had 13 slots when Andre and Werner were in.

          • TiMsTeR1033

            March 10, 2014 at 13:54

            Hectic, 13 people now thats a slaughterfest!

          • General JJ the Fett

            March 10, 2014 at 13:54

            That would make it a bit crazy I think.

      • Rock789

        March 10, 2014 at 14:08

        Tell that to the Pandas!! **sob**

        Reply

        • General JJ the Fett

          March 10, 2014 at 14:10

          There there
          We can all do with fewer sad pandas.

          Reply

          • Alien Emperor Trevor

            March 10, 2014 at 14:12

          • General JJ the Fett

            March 10, 2014 at 14:12

            Clearly he’s high.

          • Rock789

            March 10, 2014 at 14:18

            My name’s Giant Panda and this is my favourite pic on The Disqus.

        • Sir Rants A Lot Llew. Jelly!!!

          March 10, 2014 at 14:11

          The panda is a lie?

          Reply

  2. Umar Praise The Golden Sun

    March 10, 2014 at 13:39

  3. ToshZA

    March 10, 2014 at 13:41

    Header win. *dances*

    Reply

  4. Sir Rants A Lot Llew. Jelly!!!

    March 10, 2014 at 13:43

    now imagine streaming a game over this and still playing multiplayer on it. Are you gonna have lag in lag?

    #lagception?

    Anyway, on a serious note, I don’t think the world at large is ready for this.

    The pure amount of bandwidth needed just from a hosted side of things will be intense. Far larger than any MMO server requirements that’s for sure.

    Secondly, if these really are the prices then I’d much rather get a physical copy or digital purchase that I download and don’t need to stream. That way I can play anytime I like (Unless it’s an EA game or something at which point Always Online starts rearing its ugly head)

    Devs and publishers need to move away from this always online nonsense. It’s going to hurt gaming in the long run. Until internet technology evolves to a point where latency is pretty much non-existant and people don’t run the risk of being unable to play because of service outages, this will never become mainstream.

    The service isn’t a joke and is a great idea, but I dare say it’s too far ahead of its time and the world is not going to adopt this simply because gamers don’t enjoy choppy gameplay. Now imagine streaming where anything can interrupt it or cause lag? no thank you. Not for me. Not yet anyway.

    Reply

    • Exalted Overlord Geoffrey Tim

      March 10, 2014 at 13:44

      One day, when we have magical latency-free internet, this will be the ticket.

      Reply

      • Sir Rants A Lot Llew. Jelly!!!

        March 10, 2014 at 13:49

        One day when the world average is like 200mbps up and down with intercontinental latency being <10ms.

        *sigh* Imagine how awesome that would be

        Reply

        • General JJ the Fett

          March 10, 2014 at 13:50

          We’ll have that for about fifteen minutes before someone steals the lines.

          Reply

          • Sir Rants A Lot Llew. Jelly!!!

            March 10, 2014 at 13:54

            Fiber. It’s worthless to criminals. I wish Telkom would learn this lesson

          • General JJ the Fett

            March 10, 2014 at 13:55

            You forget what SA criminals are like.

          • Sir Rants A Lot Llew. Jelly!!!

            March 10, 2014 at 14:02

            actually.

            Areas that have fiber in them, while getting hit the first time after the copper is replaced, never get hit again (or at least very rarely) and in most instances it’s coz the criminals either believe there is still copper there or coz they are after the copper in the other cables and the poor fiber gets accidentally hacked.

            Criminals aren’t willing to risk it going after fiber because it’s so worthless to them

          • General JJ the Fett

            March 10, 2014 at 14:03

            actually.

            No.
            Got nothing.
            Was just messing around.

          • Alien Emperor Trevor

            March 10, 2014 at 14:04

            No, don’t give up so easily. Tell him areas with fibre get hit more regularly.

          • Sir Rants A Lot Llew. Jelly!!!

            March 10, 2014 at 14:05

            yoh. Can you just imagine hey. SA would be stuck in the internet dark ages for all eternity if that was the case. Please don’t jynx it man. Just don’t do it!

          • General JJ the Fett

            March 10, 2014 at 14:06

            Wait wait. I can do this….

            Areas with fibre are in fact more prone to criminal acts because they are so angry for not getting any money for it that they regularly revisit the same sites, hoping that by stealing the fibre all the time the world will eventually run out of it and put copper back.
            Because this, in the minds of SA criminals, makes complete sense.

          • Sir Rants A Lot Llew. Jelly!!!

            March 10, 2014 at 14:07

            Woah. The scary part is I could see that happening 0.o

          • Alien Emperor Trevor

            March 10, 2014 at 14:07

            “fibre” “regular” nothing? 🙁

          • General JJ the Fett

            March 10, 2014 at 14:08

            Wow. I’m really slow today.

          • Sir Rants A Lot Llew. Jelly!!!

            March 10, 2014 at 14:11

            GG

          • Sir Rants A Lot Llew. Jelly!!!

            March 10, 2014 at 14:06

            I won an internet argument?

            Hold on.. I need to phone the Guiness records people. They need to see this….

            #trollol.

            Sorry man, my sarcasm and joke detector is defective today. Didn’t pick up on what you were trying to point out. I needed a Captain Obvious rescue there. Heh

          • General JJ the Fett

            March 10, 2014 at 14:07

            Today you win an internet argument. Tomorrow, you become the Batman.

          • Sir Rants A Lot Llew. Jelly!!!

            March 10, 2014 at 14:11

            Correction. Iron Man.

            Less mommy and daddy issues

          • General JJ the Fett

            March 10, 2014 at 14:12

            Just please please please, Iron Man BEFORE Iron Man 3. Where he was about as emotionally stable as a twelve year old girl at a Justin Bieber concert.

          • Sir Rants A Lot Llew. Jelly!!!

            March 10, 2014 at 14:14

            Totally agreed. Iron Man 1 dude.

          • General JJ the Fett

            March 10, 2014 at 14:14

            The only Iron Man movie in my eyes.

          • Alien Emperor Trevor

            March 10, 2014 at 13:55

            It will still get stolen. They’ll only find out it’s worthless later.

      • HvR

        March 10, 2014 at 17:16

        Unfortunately law of physics doesn’t allow for this. DAMN YOU ALBERT!!!

        Reply

  5. Alien Emperor Trevor

    March 10, 2014 at 13:46

    Geoff be the original bufferer.

    Reply

  6. FoxOneZA

    March 10, 2014 at 13:58

    I was expecting a buffet. Looks like a came to the wrong place.

    Reply

  7. oVg PAYNE

    March 10, 2014 at 14:17

    Why does one need to download FF X-2 with the hard copy of FF X. Is that just more DRM bullshit?

    Reply

  8. Tauriq Moosa

    March 10, 2014 at 15:08

    What are reasons not to make retail copies or remakes? I imagine the same: a return on investment? It’s hard to think they won’t do a definitive Last of Us for ps4. That’s a ps3 game that looks better than many of the ps4 games I’ve seen/played (Thief, for example).

    Reply

  9. Raffle

    March 10, 2014 at 16:09

    Something interesting:
    (Correct my math if I’ve gone wrong somwhere).

    The distance between Capetown and London is 9661 KM.
    The distance between California (USA) and London is 8441 (1000KM less).
    The ping between Capetown and London is 180ms.
    The ping between California and London is 140ms.
    When we work back in the missing 1220KM, the ping between California and London works out to be 160ms.

    So with all the tech that the USA and UK have, they are only 20ms better than RSA when it comes to pings. The point I wish to make is that we don’t have high pings because of our ISP’s, but rather due to distance and physics.

    Reply

    • HvR

      March 10, 2014 at 17:14

      You are mostly correct.

      Since you have the US continent between California and London you will find that the actual data path will be longer (you will need to look at actual internet backbone pathways to get a correct distance).

      The “distance ping” due to length of the fibre connection is about ~50ms, between CT and London. If we ever get perfect data carriers like superconductors this can be lowered to about ~35ms.

      The rest are “losses” due to networking equipment, this currently the barrier to fully utilize real cloud technologies and where a lot of big companies are spending billions to improve.

      Reply

      • Raffle

        March 10, 2014 at 17:53

        Thanks, but can you please provide your source or calculations so we can be sure?

        Reply

        • HvR

          March 10, 2014 at 18:05

          This mostly knowledge trapped in my very disturbed mind and a few matchbook calculations so do not quote me in a paper.

          Pull any source on US and world internet backbone, you will see the CT London connection is almost direct path whereas LA apth either passes through Denver, Kansas or Houston then to big east coast city probably NY. So the path is longer with a lot more hops/nodes.

          For the very rough calculation, speed of light 300 000km/s.
          Propagation limit of data through fibre is ~60% SOL.

          Reply

  10. e1ace

    March 10, 2014 at 18:54

    Did you guys also read this wrong? It clearly shows Uncharted and Far Cry as PS Now games. While TLoU and BioShock are full retail games… Why are none of the gaming media seeing this? Isn’t it obvious…

    Reply

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