PS Now
When Sony first announced its acquisition of the Gaikai streaming service, fans were delighted at the prospect of streaming the biggest and best releases, checking them out for a quick hour, or going back to PS3 titles that they missed out on. Alas, PlayStation Now doesn’t quite deliver the low-latency experience that fans quite wanted, unless you’ve got an incredibly fast internet connection, that is.
Even then, it’s not perfect, and if PSN just happens to go down, you’re not going to be hopping in to finish BioShock Infinite that evening when you’ve got nothing else to do.
Microsoft’s Game Pass is a similar service, but one that gets it right. By enabling players to download the games onto their hard drive, those with slow internet can enjoy the game as it should be played, albeit after a bit of a wait. No latency, no drop-outs if your connection stutters for a second, it just works.
We’re not completely against having the option to stream titles on PlayStation Now if players would rather get straight into the action and have a fast enough connection, but in a world still very far off from universal fiber optic speeds, the service’s dependence on fast internet makes it far less appealing.
Plus, with all first-party titles coming to Microsoft’s Game Pass, it kind of makes PlayStation Now’s library of games look a little weak, and most definitely outdated.
