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Sony’s streaming games service PlayStation Now will enter a period of open beta in the US and Canada later today.
The service is for the time being restricted to PS3 titles. PS Now services will be integrated into the PlayStation Store, with users able to pay tiered amounts for rental access for either four hours (which will cost $1.99), seven days, 30 days or 90 days.
Sony has also confirmed that a subscription option will be offered in the future.
Over 100 titles will be available throughout the test period. Cloud saves and Trophies will be supported, as will online multiplayer.
Sony emphasises the need for for a strong and stable broadband connection”.
For the time being PS Now will be limited to PS4, with support scheduled for PS3, Vita, PS TV and some newer Sony Bravia TVs at some stage in the future.
With regard to why PS2 and PSOne titles appear to have vanished from the service, PlayStation Now senior director Jack Buser told Kotaku that: Currently for open-beta on PlayStation 4 we’re going to focus on PlayStation 3 games. We don’t have anything specific to announce at this time.
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. We believe that the PlayStation 3 has a rich catalogue of titles, and we wanna make sure we make that catalogue available to people who are new to the PlayStation ecosystem via PlayStation 4.”
Here’s a video explaining some of it:
