The 720p stream can use hardware acceleration to upscale on the client. Many people have reported very good results streaming to 4K displays because of this. Sony has done this for 5 years and understands the costs of rendering at higher resolutions, what it does to data caps and bandwidth etc. more than anyone else on a game streaming service. The absorbed the biggest game streaming services to previously exist.

If I had to guess Sony's plan is simple:

The bulk of their game library are 720p and under.

Its cheap to stream at 720p with bandwidth and data caps.

Mobile is fine with 720p.

They use hardware upscaling on the clients for the 720p streams.

For the best experience buy a PlayStation console and download the game which saves them tremendous money compared to competitors.

No one else has the game library and streaming available for this price. Netflix had terrible streaming quality compared to Amazon when released. But Netflix was cheaper and offered more volume of older content and library. PSNow is literally replicating that exact same model but in videogames while xCloud and Stadia are replicating more of the Amazon Prime model.

Low tech streaming, huge older library , cheap price = Netflix/PSNow

High tech Streaming, Newer smaller library, premium price for content = Amazon Prime/ Stadia/xCloud

Its a different approach and both have their places but one method seems to clearly reach critical mass faster. Its like comparing Walmart and Target.

The idea that playing a game that requires you to pay Sony on anything but specifically a PlayStation console is absurd and only works in fanboy system warz forum. In the real, sane world investors see this as income. Gamers see it as an opportunity to play different games.

The only reason a game being on both PC and Xbox matters is because as an investor in MS it means the game can be played without Microsoft seeing a penny of the revenue in royalties. More options to access an IP means less potential revenue to an investor and less reason for a gamer to give money to Microsoft and their ecosystem. I'm not an investor so it doesn't matter to me, but literally everywhere but this nonsensical world of system warz does basic common sense and sound business sense and financial reasoning prevail.

See above.

As someone who has subscribed to PSnow for years now even at its previous price point I can tell you it is untrue that it has no value for PS4 owners. In fact the bulk of the subscribers are PS4 users.

The reason it hold value is simple. If you have kids, they have almost every Lego game and Disney game from the PS3 and current generation. Kids which these games appeal to are far less sensitive to latency and visual quality than even the average gamer. At $100 a year I never had to buy a single game for the kids while also being able to play a couple games for myself. It's a MASSIVE bargain for a family. GamePass as far as the number of subscribers go is a whole different animal. Its is heavily subsidized by Microsoft solely for the purpose of offering value and being a loss leader. PSNow hasn't been a loss leader because it hasn't needed to. It stabilized its business model and worked to reduce costs to offer better pricing in the future to meet competition.

I think you aren't understanding PSnow or the business model or the back end of the streaming business at all.

PSNow was built to stream PS3 games which max out at 720p. It never made sense to go above that. Further the PS4 and PC app both use hardware acceleration to upscale a 720P stream if/when possible. As far as the PS4 game Sony took the logical step of allowing it to be downloaded. With streaming games, the higher resolution and assets, the more you costs per hour of use. By keeping the resolution low it keeps their costs and thus their pricing low. Further allowing downloads reduces their costs even more. This also gives them a marketing opportunity. If you want the best experience you need to buy a PS4 console which is their bread and butter. You can play without it but you will not get the best experience. It essentially acts as an advertising tool.

This has been the problem with all these services.... finding a business model which actually is profitable and PSNow is the only one actively working and in business because they found a model. Keep streaming costs down by offering a download alternative at max performance.

None of these games are being distributed on PC though. None of them have been developed for, ported to, or available on any X86 platform Windows/Mac platform. The Xbox division doesn't get a cut of games Ported to PC unless there is some special circumstance in place. It's literally impossible to play these games without the Playstation ecosystem or paying the playstation division.

@sealionact:

I find it laughable that people think this is a GamePass competitor when the wired article specifically talks about them looking at google... how narcissistic do you have to be?

Anyway Sony is doing this now to cut the legs from under both Stadia and XCloud. The timing is specifically to keep them in the conversation and have a point of comparison against the other offerings. I just wasn’t necessary before because no console streaming service existed before. Now that competition is about to launch for real then they compete for real.

It’s literally business 101.

@Xabiss:

You don’t have to stream PS4 games if you have a PS4... it’s perfectly fine to use it as a GamePass like alternative especially when it has 350 PS4 games for download and never stream a single title. Right now my usage is 75% download 25% streaming.

No

PSNow has about 350 PS4 games to download. Basically more PS4 downloadable games than GamePass has on its entire service...….

@Random_Matt: Yes, just PS4 and I would assume PS5 if its back compatible. If PS3 games can be emulated on PS5 then I don't see why they couldn't expand it to download all or most games from the service too.

No, I don't think you get it.

For $60 a year you can download 350+ PS4 games to your PS4 and play at full performance. Streaming is optional and I use it primarily as a GamePass alternative. Streaming is only one part of PSNow.