Sony is about to launch a private beta for its game streaming service, PlayStation Now, starting Tuesday on the PlayStation 4. The service comes from the cloud roots of Gaikai, a company Sony acquired for $380 million in 2012 and one that competed with the now defunct OnLive.
Gaikai provided a streaming and rental service where users would play games not located or downloaded onto their hard drives, but through the cloud and streamed over servers hosted on Gaikai's data centers. This way, users could play any games they wished without having to purchase them, own physical mediums associated with them or need to use up hard drive space for them.
When Sony acquired the company it was seen as a surprising move because streaming game rental services were a tough sell, as evidence by OnLive failing, due to many users not having the bandwidth available to really run the games lag-free. However, a couple years later and with Sony's muscles behind it, we cannot count out Sony from making it a success.
Users who've registered for PS Now Private Beta should get an email anytime with their voucher codes, as Sony explains:
"Up until this point, our Private Beta for PS Now has been available on PlayStation 3 systems," Sony says on its blog. "We're pleased to announce that the Private Beta program is expanding and will make its debut on PlayStation 4 systems on May 20. If you've registered for the PS Now Private Beta, keep an eye on your mailbox for a voucher code."
Sony has been running a private beta for the service on the PlayStation 3 for a while, as the statement above attests. What makes this unique is that the PlayStation 4 is also supported. The company also plans to expand this beta in the future to include the Bravia TV and the PlayStation Vita.
Sony would be smart to market the service for single-player titles, until bandwidth access base catches up to the demand of competitive online gaming. Titles such as The Last of Us seem like the perfect fit. You can check out the way God of War plays using this service on a Vita, via IGN [video] - and how The Last of US plays streaming, also via IGN [video].
We should expect Sony to publicly roll out the service sometime in the summer. The pricing model is still a mystery, but we should know in the coming months, depending on how successful the betas are.
