It was back in 2012, following E3 of that year, that Sony announced that it was purchasing streaming game provider Gaikai. Just under two years and $380 million later, Sony took to the stage at E3 and confirmed that the open beta version of the rebranded service, now known as PlayStation Now, would arrive on the PS4 in the US and Canada on July 31st.
Shawn Layden, President and CEO of SCEA talks about PlayStation Now at the 1 our 9 minute mark
More than 100 games will be available for the platform, with players being able to access Dead Space 3, Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes and Ultra Street Fighter 4, among others. Some of the biggest publishers and developers have signed up to provide their content, including Capcom, EA and Square Enix.
Gaikai CEO and founder Dave Perry was at the PS4 reveal in February, and stated Sony’s desire to utilise the streaming service to provide instant streaming demos to the PlayStation Network. And for those of you who didn’t watch the video above, the service will be coming to PlayStation 3, PS Vita and even selected Sony TVs (would have to be some of the more recent Bravia smart TV line).
It’s also been confirmed that the platform will be rental based and that the prices will range between $3 and $20.
We’ve seen digital services take off on consoles, with users being able to download games and other content directly from the manufacturers" stores, but with games becoming increasingly large in size – PS4’s Call of Duty: Ghosts’ 49GB install comes to mind – could we see services like this start to take off and become a more viable way to access our games? Actually, here’s a better question, do any of our gaming readers use OnLive at all?