Sony’s Todd Liss has told IGN that PlayStation Now, the company’s currently in-closed beta game streaming and rental service, will launch with “hundreds of titles.”
At a special Now event today, Sony demonstrated Naughty Dog’s Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception and Insomniac’s Ratchet and Clank: Into the Nexus (named Ratchet and Clank: Nexus in Europe) being streamed on a PS4 and PS Vita respectively. It’s currently unknown to what extent third party publisher will support Now and Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter went so far as to label the service “a joke” in January on the basis that he believes publishers won’t allow games newer than two years old to feature.
PlayStation Now works on all of Sony’s current consoles as well as mobile devices and Bravia TVs but those looking to use tablets or televisions will still need to invest in a DualShock 3. Not much is known about the service based on Gaikai’s cloud technology, which Sony acquired for $380 million two year ago, or how much a subscription will cost but Now is still set for a summer launch in North America so presumably we’ll know more after E3 next month – Sony’s press conference is set for June 9.
Several PS3 games have also appeared on the PlayStation Store on PS4, presumably as part of Sony’s tests for Now. GameInformer reports that the games can be found under the ‘Day1- Digital’ section of the marketplace and are listed as free but cannot be downloaded. The games in question are Dead Island Riptide, Ben 10 Omniverse, and MX vs ATV Alive and users only have ‘Overview’ and ‘Recommendation’ options on the store page.
