PlayStation Now Is Making Its Games Downloadable

PlayStation revealed in a blog post that PS Now subscribers will be able to download most PS4 and PS2 games currently in the PS Now Library and play them locally, offline. "Almost all PS4 games in the service, including Bloodborne, God of War 3 Remastered, NBA 2K16, and Until Dawn, will be available for download, in addition to the PS Now lineup of classic PS2 games remastered for PS4," the announcement reads. "This feature will be gradually rolled out to PS Now subscribers over the next couple of days, so if you don't see the feature on your PS Now today, make sure to check back again soon." Kotaku reports: While being connected to the internet isn't required to play PS Now games once they've been downloaded, the support page says your system will have to go online "every few days" in order to validate the PS Now subscription. In the past, PS Now had been exclusively for streaming games to your PS4. When it was announced in 2014, it was building off of Sony's 2012 acquisition of the Gaikai video game streaming service. While it offered a way for people to play older games on the newer console (since, unlike Xbox One, the PS4 isn't backwards compatible), it was hardly ideal due to problems with latency and its reliance on a consistently strong internet connection. Honestly, the only surprise here is that Sony didn't make this move sooner.

Re:

[AC-x]

Or just rip the blu-ray disc..?

Re: Well, that's logical DMR

[PhYrE2k2]

PlayStation 4 hasnâ(TM)t had too many problems with piracy especially as most games have a huge online component. Theyâ(TM)ve made it impractical to pirate games in their ecosystem. Possible, yes, but any online use and youâ(TM)re using the latest vanilla operating system.

i dont think so...

[dougdonovan]

i have been d/l playstation for 3 years...

Countdown to

[dnaumov]

this feature getting immidiately yanked as soon as the DRM is cracked.

On a sidenote: will this finally allow resolutions higher than 720p?

Re:Sony and Malware

[alvinrod]

how can you trust them with your systems?

Considering that you would need to buy Sony hardware to play Playstation games at all, I think we're a bit past that point. If you didn't trust them, why the hell would you buy a PS# in the first place, especially when you know that it's not open hardware.

Bonus for armed forces

[grilled-cheese]

This is a big help to those who go on extended periods where internet access is limited/unavailable such as active duty military personnel.

Re:

[bloodhawk]

Considering you have to connect to internet every few days it is still useless in that situation.

Re:

[bloodhawk]

learn to read moron, I wasn't complaining or suggesting it would be good, merely pointing out it would still be useless for that scenario, FFS learn to read before commenting.

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[110010001000]

No. Once you stop paying your monthly fee (or the service goes out of business) all access to the content will be revoked. That is the new model going forward for computing: pay monthly or lose access to software.

Re:

[Dutch Gun]

These are rented games from Playstation Now. It's a STREAMING SERVICE. Asking if you can keep them makes as much sense as asking if you get to keep your rental movies. No, of course not.

You always have the option of simply *buying* your games, either with a disc or a download, and playing them as long as you own a PS4. The drama here is a little over the top. No, I don't like this new rental model either, so I don't subscribe to it. The moment I can't actually buy titles is the day I give up consoles

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[account_deleted]

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Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

You're renting the games, not buying them. That's the whole point. You think they're going to let you grab them and delete them at the end of the month on the honor system?

I'm laughing that they're doing what MS proposed to do at the start of the gen.

Re:

[AC-x]

What if others picked up on this?

What, you mean like instead of paying for individual audio CDs you could pay a flat monthly fee and listen to anything you like?

Or instead of paying for individual movie DVDs or TV show boxsets you could pay a flat monthly fee and watch anything you like?

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[AC-x]

YOU may stream whatever you like, and I respect your decision to do that. But that's apples, and we're talking about ORANGES here, friend. I'm talking about Sony making, (I'm suddenly struggling to remember the particulars of this story...) Playstation games downloadable, but in such a way, IIRC, that you can only play them if the console can verify that you're allowed to play them.

It sounds like you didn't pay attention to the story the first time either, because we're talking about PlayStation Now here. A subscription service where you pay monthly to access a library of streamable games for no extra cost. That you can also now download and play offline.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

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[SuiteSisterMary]

So, to be clear, you're saying that shouldn't have to use your key to start your car? I mean, you bought and paid for it, you shouldn't have to validate yourself to it every time you want to use it, right?

Re:

[AC-x]

You had me until "If I stop paying, or Sony turns it off because they can, I can't access the content I have *purchased*"

You probably should have carried on listening, because this doesn't apply to anything you *purchased*. It's only for their Netflix-style subscription service where you pay monthly and can then stream (and now download) any game in their subscription library for "free" (i.e. no additional cost).