Sony VP: PlayStation Now won’t "disenfranchise" future hardware

Sony’s PlayStation Now announcement shouldn’t be viewed as a preview of the brand’s future, according to SCEA’s marketing vice president John Koller.

Koller explained to CVG that the freshly unveiled cloud-gaming service is an exciting prospect for Sony, but that doesn’t mean it will end up being the future of PlayStation.

"It’s not necessarily the future of PlayStation, but it is a philosophical change and a reality that we want our gaming experiences to be broadly experienced," Koller said.

"So, when you look at PS3 games – huge catalogue, really strong and diverse lineup of genres and games – we want people to be able to experience those, yes, on PlayStation platforms, but if you own a Bravia [TV] it’d be great if you could pair your DualShock 3 and be able to instantly play.

"PlayStation Now’s strong benefit is instantaneous gameplay because that is a problem in this industry. We’ve got to solve that and I think this does that. We’ve been working towards that on the download side with Play-as-you-Download [on PS4], and with PS Now we get people instantly playing whether you’re on a PlayStation, a Bravia and over time, tablets and smartphones."

Koller added that Sony remains open to physical consoles, and PS Now isn’t about to persuade the company to abandon its roots.

"We’ve been very open and bullish on physical consoles. So I don’t think PS Now necessarily disenfranchises future consoles in any way. But it does, I think, show our willingness to try and focus on content as primary.”

Really, again, focusing on the gamer first – obviously they want great content, great experiences. Those experiences can be had in many different places. So it’s more of an open position now."

The VP wouldn’t discuss pricing details, but did confirm that PS Now on tablets and smartphones will require a DualShock controller – adding that PS3 games won’t pack forced touchscreen controls.