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PS4 Fires Back at Xbox One With PlayStation Now Upgrade

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Microsoft may have captured the imagination of gamers everywhere at E3 2015 with the promise of Xbox One Backwards Compatibility, but the company still hasn’t delivered on the feature. Ahead of its  release, rival Sony has a surprise for anyone who owns a PS4 and subscribes to PlayStation Now. It’s adding to the service’s line-up of streaming games.

Sony took to its PlayStation Blog this week to announce that over 100 new titles are available for PlayStation Now subscribers today. PlayStation Now is the company’s dedicated game streaming service. Unveiled at E3 2014, the service lets users play games on Sony’s servers then streams the footage over the internet to the console in their living room. There’s nothing like it available on the Xbox One or any other rival gaming console.

playstation now streamign service

According to Sony, the catalogue of titles available for streaming through the subscription portion of PlayStation Now sits at 250 games total, 105 of them are from this update. The company is highlighting the games from developer and publisher Capcom specifically. The blog post calls out Resident Evil 6 Resident Evil 4, Resident Evil: Code Veronica X, Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles, Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles, Ultra Street Fighter 4, Street Fighter 3, Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix, Bionic Commando, Mega Man 10, Mega Man 9, Strider, Lost Planet 2, Lost Planet 3, Lost Planet: Extreme Condition, Dead Rising 2, Dead Rising 2 Off the Record and Asura’s Wrath.

The rest of the new PlayStation Now line-up includes Japanese RPG classics and indie games. All told, it’s a massive upgrade for anyone who already has a PlayStation Now subscription or might be considering purchasing a membership to the service already. To be clear, only half of PlayStation Now is subscription based. Users can also rent games on hourly or weekly increments if they choose. Potential subscribers should note that some games are available with a PlayStation Now timed rental that aren’t available through a PlayStation Now subscription.

Read: PlayStation Now Subscriptions: 5 Things You Need to Know

PlayStation Now costs $19.99 a month to stream any game from the service’s subscription collection. There are 4 hour, 7 day and 3 day on-demand rentals too. The PS Vita, PS3, PS4, PlayStation TV and some Sony televisions offer PlayStation Now streaming. It’s not available on Windows PCs.

Sony couldn’t have announced new titles to PlayStation Now at a better time. Originally, the company billed the service as a way to play games meant for the PS3 in the PS4 in lieu of their not being  compatible with older games. Strictly speaking, if a shopper was worried about losing access to their favorite game they could upgrade to the PS4 from the PS3 anyway and use PlayStation Now if they really wanted to play that old game.

Microsoft partnered with video game publisher and developer Electronic Arts for a sort-of rival to PlayStation Now. Called EA Access, the subscription lets users download titles from EA’s library, like Madden, and play them for as long as they want. EA Access doesn’t require a constant internet connection either, something PlayStation Network does.

Microsoft plans to boost EA Access with Xbox One Backwards Compatibility on November 12th when it also updates user’s consoles. Xbox One Backwards Compatibility lets users insert an Xbox 360 disc and unlock a digital download of the game for Xbox One. Users still need to insert the disc to play the game, but all of their game saves transfer over to this new version. The company has big name publishers like Warner Brothers, Bethesda, Square Enix and Ubisoft on-board with the program already. It’ll continue adding to the 100 titles it debuts with on a regular basis, Microsoft says.

Anyone interested in PlayStation Now should definitely try the rental service out for themselves. Sony is offering potential subscribers a week-long free trial.

13 Comments

13 Comments

  1. Peter Cummings

    11/03/2015 at 12:14 pm

    I have a PS4, not and XBOX 1.
    XBOXS backward compatibility is better feature by far than a $20 a month service.
    I do not care about backward compatibility or streaming games.

    • mike olson

      11/04/2015 at 8:45 am

      It’s only $15 a month for a 3 month sub, That’s only $3 more than my Netflix subscription. You get more games than you own or have owned and can cancel it whenever you want. I have it simply for my brother and my kids to use. I have no desire to play last gen games unless they are a good remaster like Uncharted collection or Last of Us, so I don’t really care about backwards compatibility either but for someone that wants a lot of games to play it’s great.

  2. Modi Rage

    11/03/2015 at 5:23 pm

    This is a well known Xbox fanboy website. You guys keep making dumb console war titles. PlayStation Now isn’t firing back at Xbox One. They’re just adding more games to the PlayStation Now service. You could’ve just reported that but instead you decided to turn it into a dumb console war article.

  3. Stoney (@stoney28z)

    11/04/2015 at 6:12 am

    Comparing a paid service to a free service is just stupid

    • Travis Pope

      11/04/2015 at 6:58 am

      I disagree. They are both ways to get backwards compatibility. Price — in this case — doesn’t negate the need for a comparison at all.

  4. Ed

    11/04/2015 at 8:02 am

    Who cares about playing old games? Once I’ve experienced a new console there’s no going back. Your old console’s only worth $20. Keep it, there’s your moronic BC.

    • mike olson

      11/04/2015 at 8:48 am

      Exactly, I have a PS now subscription for my brother and my kids that only have ps3’s. We have a Sony tv at work that is ps now capable. I brought controllers in and we logged on my account and played games at work without a console, worked pretty damn well.

  5. PS4-Owner

    11/04/2015 at 10:50 am

    Well this sucks, looks like Sony really doesn’t give a crap about their users. Playstation Now is simply a cashcow. If they were smart they’d make it where backward compatibility were possible like how Microsoft is doing, instead of having us rent and pay monthly for games that we may already own. When most of us pay for a game we want to actually keep it and be able to play it whenever without being charged, but Sony has it where we have to pay them continually.

    I’m sorry but this is not Sony firing back at Microsoft, this is Sony shooting themselves in the head. If Playstation Now gets attacked by hackers which it will no doubt as Sony always has some problem with hackers, or if Playstation Now gets glitched up or the system shuts down, then everyone will get screwed in the end. Now I’m sure there will be people disagreeing with me for whatever reason and be a white knight for Sony, but just face it, you don’t have to pay and rent for games you actually own, Sony could of easily made backwards compatibility possible, but they only care about getting your money and maybe are worried about looking unoriginal from what Microsoft are doing with the backwards compatibility.

  6. jim

    11/04/2015 at 11:48 am

    Uh, explain how Sony is “firing back” again? Sony is charging you $20 bucks a month for “backwards compatibility” that is essentially you connecting to a cloud system that runs the game and streams it back to you, meaning you don’t own the game nor is it running natively on your console. Xbox One backwards compatibility is completely free, and the games install and run on your console like a normal XB1 game, and they belong to you forever. Don’t get me wrong, PS now is a great idea, but I’d prefer the XB1 approach any day.

  7. Demond Gilliam

    11/04/2015 at 6:11 pm

    I’m not paying to play the games I’ve already purchased for ps3 on ps4

  8. sed

    11/06/2015 at 10:46 am

    For 20 bucks they can only dream anybody cares about it.

  9. Austin

    12/06/2015 at 12:03 pm

    Sony should just shut PS Now down and sell off Gaikai.

  10. Walrus of One

    03/15/2016 at 11:42 am

    PS Now isn’t a bad idea, I don’t like it any more or less than I do the XB1 backwards compatibility. It just shouldn’t be something you have to pay for. The subscription and rental fees are what kill it for me. Otherwise it’d be great.

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