UPDATE: Well, PS Plus Premium is now live, and I’ve had some time to actually play with it, and I have to say, Sony has vastly improved the service. Which is weird, because they didn’t really do much different. The PS3 games are still streaming only, and the PS2 Classics and PS4 games are still installable. The main difference is that newer games are starting to hit the service now, with several relevant titles coming in the past few weeks in addition to the handful of big launch titles such as Spider-Man Miles Morales and Ghost of Tsushima. There are some PS1 Classics available as well, though admittedly Sony has a lot of work to do in regards to their emulator. If they can get that fixed up and keep with the regular cadence of classic (and new) titles coming to the service, I will have no problem holding onto my subscription. As someone who does not have a huge investment into the Playstation eco-system, this appears to be the service I’ve been waiting for. Time will tell whether they will keep up with this pace, but so far, so good.
As all three of my readers know, I’m not traditionally a Playstation gamer. That’s not to say I don’t like Sony’s console. I’ve owned all four of them, and would own the PS5 as well, if I could actually find one. It’s just that Sony’s exclusive games are hit or miss with me. I was a pretty big God of War fan back in the day, and played through the original three (never had a Vita or PSP) and thought the reboot was a blast. Horizon Zero Dawn had an intriguing story, but after I completed it, I wasn’t really compelled to return to it as I didn’t really care for the combat. I’m a huge Uncharted fan, and I generally play through the five games (including Lost Legacy) at least once a year. Spider-man was excellent.
On the flipside though, I liked The Last of Us, but I didn’t love it, and the sequel hasn’t intrigued me enough to invest the time into it. Gran Turismo Sport didn’t have a legit single player mode, but Gran Turismo 7 is looking to rectify that and I’m extremely excited for it. Ghost of Tsushima is supposedly an amazing game, but, and I’ll be completely honest here, games that take place in feudal Japan, or ancient China do not interest me in the slightest. I wish I knew why, but that setting does zero for me. I think it’s because it never changes? Maybe? I don’t know, but it’s always been there, even going way back to the days of Tenchu and Onimusha. Great games that I just can’t get into because the setting bores me to tears.
Unfortunately, that really makes up a bulk of the Playstation exclusives. And it’s hard to invest money in a platform that I play so little. That’s not to say it doesn’t happen, but it’s challenging. If only there was a way to play these games for a cheap monthly price. Because I’ll be honest, I’m still a gamer, and a pretty whorish one at that. I’ll try anything once.
So I signed up for PSNow, again. The last time I gave it a try was a few years ago, before Game Pass really started to take off, and before Sony implemented the ability to download PS4 games to the console. Surely it’s got to be awesome by now, right?
I realized almost immediately how not awesome it is. No Days Gone? No Ghost of Tsushima? No Gran Turismo Sport? No Spiderman Miles Morales? No Final Fantasy 7 Remake? No Concrete Genie?
What the fuck, Sony? I can maybe understand Ghost of Tsushima, because it’s relatively new, but all of those other games have been out for at least a year, or more. And they’ve all made their money. And to be fair, there are some gems on there, like God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn, and Bloodborne. But unless you’re brand new to the Sony platform, there’s a pretty damn good chance you’ve played all these already. In my case, I already own them.
But everything else on the service is… well… not appealing. And I can’t even say it’s just not appealing to me. I can’t see most people being like “Hell, yeah, they have the Atelier series on here!” I mean sure, there are probably some, but not exactly what you want to base your service on.
I find myself being more interested in the older PS2 and PS3 games on there, but they’re only available for streaming, and that’s hit or miss as well. Having my PS4 wired to the internet helps, but it can still be shaky at times, and some of those games don’t lend themselves well to input lag. If I could download them and play them in backward compatibility mode like on Xbox, PSNow would be a gold mine. They have some weird games on there that Xbox doesn’t have, like Hunted: The Demon’s Forge, which is a Bethesda game that Microsoft literally owns. Hopefully its a contractual thing and will be available one day, because I’d love to play it locally.
I’m truly hoping the reason Sony hasn’t fully invested into PSNow is because their rumored Game Pass competitor is actually in the works. I do plan on acquiring a PS5, somehow, and I would throw myself at the opportunity to play a library of PS4 and PS5 games for a reasonable monthly fee.
As it stands right now though, I’ll play PSNow enough to feel like I got my money’s worth out of the monthly price and then cancel it again, just like I did a few years ago. Because it still kinda sucks.
