If you take “Cloud” streaming literally, you have to go with PlayStation Plus. That joke isn’t even factually true, since Final Fantasy VII Rebirth has made it to PC, but it’s iconic spiky-haired protagonist may as well be the face of the PlayStation 4 and 5’s game streaming program.
You can only get into PlayStation’s cloud gaming beta if you pay for the most expensive tier of PS Plus, Premium. With it, you’ll get online feature and access to hundreds of streamable titles including Death Stranding and God of War as well as a healthy library of throwbacks from the PS1 and PS2 era. You don’t need the strongest internet to start streaming on PS Plus, and it even has the lowest minimum required network specs at 5 Mbps.
This is all great until you release how limited the options are compared to the competitors. No streaming on your phone or smart TV, just on PlayStation and PC—two places where games can already be played sans cloud nonsense. So, what’s the point? I see it as an added bonus for the PlayStation Portal. This remote handheld has mixed results in Remote Play mode, and using cloud streaming smoothes out those issues.
With the Xbox app, it doesn’t matter whether you’re cloud streaming on PC or playing a title downloaded through Game Pass on your console (or vice versa), your save will sync to the cloud and be there regardless of where you choose to play next. The process is not as seamless on PS Plus and will often require a manual sync.
On the whole, it is the most limited of the major options. Between being stuck to the PlayStation app or PS console and these cloud save issues, it doesn’t yet feel like a feature Sony would be able to justify charging for on its own.
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