by ted2112, HSM team writer

Yesterday was a monumental day for gaming. I mean properly epic, over-the-top huge.

Sony rolled out PlayStation Now.

Just what is PlayStaion Now? Well, in short, it’s the future of gaming as we know it. PlayStaion Now is the name of the streaming service designed to bring games from yesteryear to the PS4 — and, in the future, your Sony smart TV and beyond. Sony bought the world’s largest video game streaming company, Gaikai, just last year — in what could be seen as the boldest preemptive strike on the future of how we game. Industry analysts have long talked about how this console generation could very well be the last one as we know them, and they’re very likely right; Sony has the ability to bring the PlayStation experience out beyond specific dedicated hardware to a wide array of devices, including mobile. And since Sony is a TV manufacturer — whereas Microsoft isn’t — this is a decidedly significant advantage if leveraged correctly.

I didn’t get an invite to the initial closed beta, but it doesn’t look like we will have to wait very long, as Sony is expecting to roll out the service in earnest later this year. This has all been quietly going on behind the scenes  for well over a year, and in the battle for dominance to have an all-in-one source of media entertainment, PS Now looks like Sony’s masterstroke.

In theory, PlayStation Now could be able to stream every PlayStation game ever made to the PS4. So far, we know that The Last of Us and Beyond: Two Souls will be among the first ready to go, but beyond that we don’t know what games Sony will pick. I do think it’s safe to assume Home won’t be among the first offerings when it is still thriving on the PS3, but it is my hope that Home will port over to the PS4 via PlayStaion Now in a few years, should its consumer base stay active and fiscally justify its existence. It is also my personal hope that this will coincide with a core client upgrade to Home, boosting what Home is capable of, but on that point I’m just guessing and wishfully thinking.

What I do know is this is a game-changer in every way. It’s such a dramatic shift to the industry that GameStop stock plunged upon Sony’s announcement (source). I also know that Sony isn’t stopping with the PS4. PlayStation Now will eventually be coming to just about every internet-connected device Sony makes, and they also are rolling out a Sony live TV service that will blur the line between TV and media connected devices.

There will, obviously, be a charge for PlayStion Now. At the rollout, Sony’s Andrew House mentioned they were working on several payment models, including rental and subscription based, but just what those will be at this point hasn’t been disclosed. Also, whether or not we will have free access to disc or PSN games we have already bought hasn’t seemed to have been decided yet.  I would really like to see this happen and be able to take my gaming catalog with me to the PS4.

PlayStation Now is a grand slam for the PlayStation brand, and I feel it will be worth every penny of the hundreds of millions of dollars Sony paid for the infrastructure necessary to support it. This shift not only leaves the XBox in the dust: it leaves just about everything in the dust.

Ironic, isn’t it? Microsoft, which so heavily promoted its XBox One as the all-in-one media center, at the bleeding edge of what was technologically feasible, has been soundly trounced by consumers. Meanwhile, Sony — which promoted itself first and foremost as a gaming-centric platform — has completely outflanked the competition and truly established itself as being on the verge of a true all-in-one solution.

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