The only reason I might have a slight interested in PS Now is because the PS3 & X360 were my first consoles so I missed out on a lot of great PS2 games.
The catalogue of old games is pretty much my biggest interest in PS Now as well. Too bad that it seems it's only going to cater to the PS3 market, since Sony has gone from promising it to
avoiding all discussion about it:
Schreier: When you guys first announced PS Now, you announced that it wouldn't just be PS3 games, but it'd also be PS1 and PS2 games. Is that still something you guys are planning to add to the services?
Buser: Currently for open-beta on PlayStation 4 we're going to focus on PlayStation 3 games. This will be integrated into the PlayStation 4 in the US and Canada. In terms of devices that will support PlayStation Now, we'll then be expanding from PlayStation 4 and applying the open beta on PS3, PS TV, PS Vita. And then the ultimate vision of PlayStation Now is to support a wide variety of devices.
Schreier: Well I don't mean devices, I mean, the games that you'd be able to play.
Buser: During the open beta launch on PlayStation 4 we'll be focusing on PlayStation 3 titles. We don't have anything specific to announce at this time.
Schreier: The reason I'm asking, and kinda pressing you a little bit on this is because at first it was announced that it'd be PS1/PS2/PS3, and then I remember there was a rumor somewhere that you guys had changed plans about that. I know that a lot of my readers are big fans of retro games, and like the idea of being able to play all these old games on their fancy new PS4s, so I'm hoping for some clarification there.
Buser: One thing I wanna stress is that we're in the early days of the beta. We're gonna launch in open beta on PlayStation 4, we're gonna focus on PS3 titles. One of the things that's really exciting about that is that there are a lot of people that are gonna have PS4 that are new to the PlayStation ecosystem. We believe that the PlayStation 3 has a rich catalog of titles, and we wanna make sure we make that catalog available to people who are new to the PlayStation ecosystem via PlayStation 4. Again, we're in the early days, and it's all about the beta testing community to give us feedback—what kind of content do they want to see on the service, what kind of features, and on and on. I really encourage folks to give us that feedback on what they want to see in the future.
I'm just really so sick of these bastard companies continually getting away with their shit.
Allow me a few moments to express my frustration with consoles in general and Sony in particular:
- No backwards compatability.
- With Sony, regardless of how many games you might own on PSN (as though this should even be a necessary qualifier), you cannot migrate your account's region, meaning that you need a new account if you want to continue to buy games. Of course, you can still play on your old account but fuck, really, who wants multiple accounts to do ONE FUCKING THING?
- Performance is shit. Yes, shit. Whether loading, saving or entering a new area in a game, it takes ages.
- You cannot download faster than maybe 5MB/s on a PS3 (and, from what I hear, PS4 suffers from the same trouble). But don't worry, that's okay, because it still downloads faster than it installs, which brings me to my next point.
- It can take a 20+GB game about two hours to just install. That's acceptable?
- You buy into its market environment, you have nowhere else to turn for deals, a bigger selection, etc. Can't find it online? Buy it from a store or an online retailer, assuming it can still be found. What's the point of PSN or this "digital age" again?
- The misguided belief that it's simply "sit down and play." No, no--you have to wait a few hours for it to install, then wait for it to patch, then wait for it for it to create a "save state/profile" and then, while it loads up the game, go make yourself a cup of coffee.
Consoles are wonderful for Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo--you spend a small fortune on buying into their environment, handing over your freedom, your "user rights" and letting them tell you how much you should pay for something, how you should use it and then convincing yourself that you've made the best decision.
Their marketing departments spend a fortune trying to convince you that their console is the best, the most futuristic, advanced and performance-rich device on the market. Despite their content being limited, their libraries being invalidated with every new "generation," their pricing largely being preposterous (how, how can a game bought digitally cost MORE than in store? Oh, don't worry that's because ""
First of all, we want to support a healthy retail channel, so it's not in our interest to go and seriously undermine retail." -- it's so nice of them to care about the old ways at the expense of the new).
Consoles don't advance the industry, they hold it back.
But the myths have been grounded in apocrypha:
- Consoles are easier (insert image of angry PC user).
- Consoles are more fun (insert image of group of people in a living room holding controllers with magazine smiles on their faces).
- Consoles are modern (insert image of neon lights and Dolby surround sound).
I am a gamer, sure. I love games; I don't care about platform wars. I do, however, strongly care about a hypocritical industry with a consumer base that is largely apathetic to the back-handed, two-faced nature of console environments that exist because
you fucking idiots let them get away with it every single time you defend this bullshit.
Afterthought: Hmm... I may have gone off on a bit of a tangent here. Don't mind me
