PlayStation Now is a neat little service. Sony purchased Gaikai a few years ago and turned it into a way to play PlayStation games without necessarily having a PlayStation. If you have a compatible set top box and a PlayStation controller, you can subscribe to the service and stream PlayStation 3 games to your TV over the Internet—basically PlayStation-as-a-service.
The biggest problem with the service has been the limited ways to get it. Sony has been intent on being Sony and locking down PlayStation Now to people with Sony hardware. In the past, PS Now has been limited to the PlayStation 3, 4, Vita, or the purpose-built PlayStation TV microconsole. Recently though, Sony has announced it is opening up the platform to Sony Smart TVs and—in a particularly interesting move—non-Sony Smart TVs. My Samsung “H7150” Series Smart TV from 2014 recently got the PlayStation Now update, so we decided to see what the service was like with no boxes whatsoever.
The previous PS Now platforms—the PS 3, 4, Vita, and TV—have all been capable gaming systems in their own right. My Samsung Smart TV, on the other hand, is so woefully underpowered it can barely scroll through its own menus. You can press down on a button, lift your finger up, and move over to a new button before the first press is registered on the screen. I tried to load Ars Technica on the browser before and it just froze. I’m very happy with the important part of my TV—the screen and inputs—but the Smart TV portion is one of the worst computing experiences I’ve had in some time. Now, Sony is telling me this technological disaster is going to start pumping out Playstation 3 games?! I had serious doubts.
Read 10 remaining paragraphs | Comments
