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"After\u00A0Sony\u2019s PlayStation Now cloud gaming service launched in open beta on the PlayStation 4 this week, we wanted\u00A0to see if it lives up to expectations. The service does make it extremely easy to jump right in and play older PlayStation games, but the pricing model will need to be adjusted to really take off.\r\nPS Now currently offers over 100 PS3\u00A0titles, with content from older systems expected to arrive down the road. Online multiplayer and co-op is supported, and you\u2019ll be able to play against owners of the actual disc too.\u00A0You won't find all of your favorite last-gen games on PS Now just yet, but\u00A0plenty of\u00A0popular franchises, such as Final Fantasy and Metal Gear,\u00A0are available.\r\nWhile Sony has confirmed that it is working on a subscription option for PS Now, the service is rental-only at the moment. Rental periods\u00A0available\u00A0are 4 hours, 7 days, 30 days and 90 days. Cheaper games can cost you just a few dollars for the full 90-day period, but a big-budget title like F1 2013 costs as much as $49.99 to rent. That\u2019s absurd, considering you could buy the game outright for less than that.\r\n\r\nYou\u2019ll need a solid broadband connection, roughly 5 Mbps or better, to get going with PS Now. Sony recommends that you have a wired connection, but it worked fine for me over Wi-Fi. My home connection averages 16 Mbps, and games ran without any trouble.\r\nLoading times aren\u2019t bad. In some cases, they\u2019re faster than loading off the disc. The service would occasionally hang while booting or closing a game, but hopefully Sony will resolve that before the general release. Gameplay also felt sluggish at times, especially when playing online, but it was usually manageable.\r\n\r\nI did run into one instance where a game crashed in the middle of a level and I lost all my progress. I\u2019ll give Sony the benefit of the doubt and chalk that up to beta status. But if unresolved, even the smallest reliability issues could leave PS Now\u00A0dead in the water when it launches.\r\nWhen it\u2019s working properly, PS Now makes it pretty easy to forget that you\u2019re gaming in the cloud. There are some quirks, though. If you\u2019re inactive for too long on a game, Sony will log you out in order to free up the service. Also, since you\u2019re playing PS3 games on a PS4 controller, you\u2019ll have to use the touchpad as the select and start buttons. It\u2019s not a big deal, but it takes some getting used to.\r\nFrom our short time with the PS Now beta, we\u2019re fairly confident that Sony can make the technology work once it\u2019s finished with a last bit of polishing. Playing PS3 games on a PS4 isn\u2019t much of a value proposition, though, since most PS4 owners probably own a last-gen console. The real vision behind cloud gaming goes beyond consoles.\u00A0 Streaming games to a smart TV, the PS Vita, a tablet or a smartphone is when things will really get interesting.\r\nAs it stands, PS Now is an impressive concept with extraordinary potential. Cloud gaming is coming, and Sony is leading the charge. We\u2019d need to see prices come down quite a bit for us to get regular use out of it, but a subscription service with rotating access to classic PlayStation games across a range of devices would have us reaching for our wallets in a heartbeat.\r\nRelated: From cloud gaming to VR, Sony is poised to own the full-stack of the future of entertainment"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://thenextweb.com/insider/2014/08/01/playstation-now-beta-first-impressions-cloud-gaming-convenient-expensive/1396955/>