Games Offered
The service offered games I had never played before that I wanted to jump into. Games like Control, Hollow Knight, Spec Ops: The Line, Tokyo Jungle, Ape Escape, Dead Cells, Vampyr, ADR1FT, etc. Some were older games that I never got around to. Some were games I started on my PS3 but never finished. Others were new to me. It also offered some great games that I already owned like God of War, Gravity Rush, Resident Evil 7, Bloodborne, Velocity 2X, OlliOlli2, etc.
Some games were good (Control, Hollow Knight) and others were bad (Vampyr, Hello Neighbor). Luckily I have built a tool that will rank the games based on Metacritic Score. See it here. Every month the script will rank the newly added games to the service. Subscribe to the RSS here. So if you choose to get PlayStation Now (or want to watch how the service is doing), go there.
Streaming Quality
The streaming quality wasn't good. The best way to describe it is like going to a friend's house and playing games on their TV that lacks a game mode. The lag is noticeable and can make playing shooters very difficult. Luckily, PlayStation Now offers downloading games on PlayStation 4. Playing Hollow Knight via stream was passable, but once I downloaded I couldn't go back to streaming.
The only way to play PlayStation 3 games is via streaming, which was a challenge for Spec Ops: The Line. It's a first person shooter, and it was often difficult to aim in hectic situations. However, games like Tokyo Jungle worked perfectly fine as it was just an adventure game that didn't require quick reflexes.
I did lose connection a few times, which was really annoying when it did happen. You don't reconnect to the same server/instance that you were previously on. So the game essentially restarts and hopefully you were able to save.
PlayStation 2 games you can mostly download on your PS4, so any latency issues are not a concern. And again, if you have a PS4 you always have the option to download the game if you try it and think you'll want to play more of it.
Conclusion
If you have a PlayStation 4, I'd recommend the service. Every game offered on the service provides you with free online gaming, so you don't need PlayStation Plus to play those games online. Not saying you should cancel your PlayStation Plus subscription, but I feel like the games offered on there are better than the ones offered on PlayStation Plus. I held out on buying Control ($60) and instead went with PlayStation Now and got access to all those games I mentioned.
With streaming giving you the option to try a game within seconds, it's very easy to try and forget so many games. With a catalog of over 600 games, it makes deciding which games to download a breeze. And don't forget about the RSS feeds above.
P.S. Future?
What does the future hold for PlayStation Now? Unfortunately, I don't think very much. I'd love for small improvements, like when reconnecting to the service continue the last game you were playing where you left off. I'd love to see PlayStation Plus merge with PlayStation Now. But until Sony gets any competition in this area, they're probably not going to do anything.
Remember, Sony is actually turning a profit on this service, unlike its competitors. For now, the service is able to continue as it is. But maybe in a few years, the tides may turn and Sony may flip a switch and get PlayStation Now smooth like butter.
- Game Pass: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/xbox-game-pass-is-not-a-big-moneymaker-right-now-b/1100-6480241/
- GeForce Now: https://www.mcvuk.com/business-news/nvidias-geforce-now-cloud-gaming-service-comes-out-of-beta-testing/
- Stadia: N/A
- PlayStation Now: https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/playstation-now-xbox-game-pass-ea-access-revenue/
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