Godmachine
[H]F Junkie
- Joined
- Apr 7, 2003
- Messages
- 10,472
Alright so I rented a game for $2.99 for 4 hours (that is the most I'm willing to spend for such an absurdly short amount of time) and what follows are my impressions of playing and using PS Now.
Game : Enslaved: Odyssey to the West
So the actual buying process is painless and really nothing to report that would be of any use. However PSN tests your connection before you complete your transaction so at least that's good for the less technically inclined versus allowing you to rent and then possibly not be able to stream well enough to be playable. I picked this game because its a nice mix of action and puzzle solving so it serves both sides of the spectrum for gamers who will want fast paced games and those who only care about non-twitch genres.
First off its pretty fast , you get right to the opening credits within about 15-20 seconds (this will vary I'm sure from connection to connection based on quality) and right off the bat the service brings up an overlay menu to remind you that the touchpad also functions as "Select" and "Start" with "Select" being on the left and "Start" being to the right. Simple enough right? Right.
So I load up the game and first off and lets get this out in the open the codec Sony uses is probably one of the best I've seen for a streaming service that isn't local. But and this is a big BUT (heh) its not up to par with the quality of my connection. Sony could bump up the bit rate without putting anything in jeopardy and from what I can tell the codec is doing about 3 mbps at best. Not very promising honestly as I expected Sony to at least commit to 5 Mbps standard. You should have 5 Mbps standard in many parts of the country and if you don't you likely have data caps so this service doesn't interest you anyway. Its a minor gripe right now considering PS Now is in beta but it better get solved overtime or people will complain.
Onto controls. So the input latency is there , you can't physically not have input latency streaming like this through the internet. Just not possible with the current infrastructure , its MUCH better than say Onlive (which is unplayable frankly) but I wish they could figure out a solution to deal with input latency. For those that don't know what that means it means the input from your action on the controller sent to their servers then processed and then a reaction on your screen of that input is played out in the game , its absolutely critical to playing a video game. For the puzzle solving parts of the game this was only a minor issue but for the moments when you are being chased and every reaction makes or breaks the success of that escape its just laggy and for some probably not acceptable. This will of course vary person to person due to personal preferences.
Connection quality. So I never got disconnected but I did notice that my "Select" and "Start" keys were not working at all. No matter what I did , including restart the game stream , nothing made them work. I'll just call that a beta bug but its another important fix frankly as I could not pause the game which was aggravating. I'm lucky in the sense that my connection is solid but I would imagine under lesser conditions this will certainly come into play. But for now as long as your connection is solid then so is Sony's. A side note : If you leave the game idle for awhile Sony kicks you off to make more room for other players (or so they claim..) so you can't really just leave the game running and not that you would want to at this price point.
Which brings me to final and truly damning problem with this service.. the absolutely mental cost. Renting a game for 4 hours for $2.99? That is robbery pure and simple. Renting a game for $49.99 for 90 days that you could buy used from Ebay for $5 dollars? Fucking insane. Sony better straighten the fuck up and soon with this pricing system as it completely destroys the potential of it entirely. I just can't grasp why anyone would spend that kind of money for hours of play at a time? You can buy a used PS3 for probably $75 on Ebay and then buy the actual game for $5 then play it for the next few decades (in theory) until the system is dead forever and furthermore once you buy a PS3 you have access to its entire library on the cheap! Why on Earth even for convenience sake would you pay Sony for a game that came out in 2010 $49 to rent it for any length of time?
Bottom Line : Should you use this service? No. Buy the system required and enjoy the entire library of games for much cheaper and without rental periods.
Game : Enslaved: Odyssey to the West
So the actual buying process is painless and really nothing to report that would be of any use. However PSN tests your connection before you complete your transaction so at least that's good for the less technically inclined versus allowing you to rent and then possibly not be able to stream well enough to be playable. I picked this game because its a nice mix of action and puzzle solving so it serves both sides of the spectrum for gamers who will want fast paced games and those who only care about non-twitch genres.
First off its pretty fast , you get right to the opening credits within about 15-20 seconds (this will vary I'm sure from connection to connection based on quality) and right off the bat the service brings up an overlay menu to remind you that the touchpad also functions as "Select" and "Start" with "Select" being on the left and "Start" being to the right. Simple enough right? Right.
So I load up the game and first off and lets get this out in the open the codec Sony uses is probably one of the best I've seen for a streaming service that isn't local. But and this is a big BUT (heh) its not up to par with the quality of my connection. Sony could bump up the bit rate without putting anything in jeopardy and from what I can tell the codec is doing about 3 mbps at best. Not very promising honestly as I expected Sony to at least commit to 5 Mbps standard. You should have 5 Mbps standard in many parts of the country and if you don't you likely have data caps so this service doesn't interest you anyway. Its a minor gripe right now considering PS Now is in beta but it better get solved overtime or people will complain.
Onto controls. So the input latency is there , you can't physically not have input latency streaming like this through the internet. Just not possible with the current infrastructure , its MUCH better than say Onlive (which is unplayable frankly) but I wish they could figure out a solution to deal with input latency. For those that don't know what that means it means the input from your action on the controller sent to their servers then processed and then a reaction on your screen of that input is played out in the game , its absolutely critical to playing a video game. For the puzzle solving parts of the game this was only a minor issue but for the moments when you are being chased and every reaction makes or breaks the success of that escape its just laggy and for some probably not acceptable. This will of course vary person to person due to personal preferences.
Connection quality. So I never got disconnected but I did notice that my "Select" and "Start" keys were not working at all. No matter what I did , including restart the game stream , nothing made them work. I'll just call that a beta bug but its another important fix frankly as I could not pause the game which was aggravating. I'm lucky in the sense that my connection is solid but I would imagine under lesser conditions this will certainly come into play. But for now as long as your connection is solid then so is Sony's. A side note : If you leave the game idle for awhile Sony kicks you off to make more room for other players (or so they claim..) so you can't really just leave the game running and not that you would want to at this price point.
Which brings me to final and truly damning problem with this service.. the absolutely mental cost. Renting a game for 4 hours for $2.99? That is robbery pure and simple. Renting a game for $49.99 for 90 days that you could buy used from Ebay for $5 dollars? Fucking insane. Sony better straighten the fuck up and soon with this pricing system as it completely destroys the potential of it entirely. I just can't grasp why anyone would spend that kind of money for hours of play at a time? You can buy a used PS3 for probably $75 on Ebay and then buy the actual game for $5 then play it for the next few decades (in theory) until the system is dead forever and furthermore once you buy a PS3 you have access to its entire library on the cheap! Why on Earth even for convenience sake would you pay Sony for a game that came out in 2010 $49 to rent it for any length of time?
Bottom Line : Should you use this service? No. Buy the system required and enjoy the entire library of games for much cheaper and without rental periods.