Sony is to begin offering subscriptions to its streaming games service, PlayStation Now . The service, which has been up and running for the past few months, gives Sony console owners access to a library of old PlayStation 3 titles.
Until now, Sony has charged individual rental fees for the 100+ games in the PlayStation Now library. It cost $2.99 to rent any title in the library for four hours, $5.99 for a week, $7.99 for a month and $14.99 for 90 days. Now Sony is moving to the Netflix model, offering gamers unlimited access to the library for a set subscription fee, although they'll have to cough up significantly more than customers of the television service.
A one-month subscription will cost $19.99 (around £13) or you can buy three months of access for $44.99 (around £30). Sony says the subscriptions will first be offered to PlayStation 4 owners in North America, " and will come to other PlayStation Now enabled devices in the future". There's no word on whether the subscriptions will eventually be offered in the UK.
PlayStation Now is available through several of the company's devices, including the PlayStation 4 and 3, the handheld PS Vita and the PlayStation TV. The games are streamed over the internet - there's nothing to download or install - and saved game progress is stored in the cloud.
There's a wide variety of titles available on PlayStation Now, including hits such as The Last Of Us, Mass Effect 2 and games from the Final Fantasy series. However, major titles such as the FIFA football series or Call of Duty are conspicuous by their absence.
Microsoft is believed to be working on its own streaming games service , which could be released to coincide with the launch of Windows 10 later this year. Dubbed Arcadia, it's believed the service will allow users to stream 3D games to low-powered tablets and PCs, but could also include the Xbox consoles.
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