blog From the Department of No Surprises comes the news that Sony’s cloud-based PlayStation Now service — which allows users of its gaming consoles to play games online without having to download the content — will not initially be available to Australians when it launches in the middle of this year. Following Sony’s press conference on this and other subjects at the E3 gaming expo in the United States this week, The Financial Review quizzed Sony’s local team and found the answer wanting. The newspaper reports (we recommend you click here for the full article):
“Australians face at least a year’s wait to use a cloud-computing service allowing Sony PlayStation owners to play video games streamed over the internet, due to a mix of poor broadband speeds and expensive computer servers needed to operate the service.”
This is hardly a surprise — indeed, it’s almost to be expected at this point. Now requires a solid broadband connection and probably local datacentre resources, neither of which come easily in Austraila. And, to be honest, it’s not that huge a deal, given that Australian owners of Sony’s PlayStation consoles will still be able to play games on those consoles — they just need to buy physical discs or download the content online, instead of streaming it from the cloud. But it is disappointing, and reflects the ongoing struggle in Australia to keep up with global technology infrastructure. We’re falling behind — and given our chronic early adopter habits, that is a very sad thing indeed.
Image credit: włodi, Creative Commons
> We’re falling behind — and given our chronic early adopter habits, that is a very sad thing indeed.
Yeah, I saw this ‘no’ coming as soon as the service originally announced and they said they’d evaluate on a regional basis whether or not it’ll be available.
And speaking of which, New Zealand is launching 1 Gbps. For $65 wholesale. With an obligatory reminder that, for most of us, Auckland is closer than Perth. And here I thought that FTTP was “largely superceded” by FTTN and that the right-wing government there should now better.
Also, latency on VDSL2 and vectoring is going to be fun for this kind of service!
hmm maybe we could get fibre from nz
This is the first of many services which can not be developed in this country due to poor internet.
Even with a Gbps service, these cloud services are still only good for slow and puzzle based games in HD. Of course, the PS4 had a unique advantage where you could stream in the ‘proper’ game assets while you’re playing the cloud version, which is always welcome.
A shame Sony couldn’t have just said something like ‘if only the FTTP NBN was still in the works’…
“to be honest, it’s not that huge a deal, given that Australian owners of Sony’s PlayStation consoles will still be able to play games on those consoles — they just need to buy physical discs or download the content online, instead of streaming it from the cloud”.
Not exactly true, Playstation Now allows PS3 games to be streamed to a PS4 which cannot play PS3 discs.
Very valid point … but how many people own a PS4 but won’t own a PS3? My suspicion is that most who upgrade will keep their PS3, as the PS4 doesn’t play PS3 games.
I don’t own a ps3, was 360 last gen. Also I know at least one other that was the same.
Besides the friend that owns all consoles, none of my other friends have upgraded to err current gen.
Agreed. I’m in the same boat. There are a ton of PS3 games that I never had the chance to play. I’m loving the amount of HD remasters that are coming out on PS4 but I bought the console hoping to use the PS4 to play games like Ratchet and Clank, Uncharted etc.
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