Playstation Now is Sony's Massive Cloud Gaming Service

Sony has been promising further details on their Gaikai-based cloud streaming service, and at CES 2014, they did just that.

The service, known as Playstation Now, is built around a very simple concept: the Playstation library, fully available for a Playstation 3, Playstation 4, or Playstation Vita user. It is a solid way to alleviate the lack of backwards compatability, as the basic premise was introduced with the idea of playing Playstation 3 games on a Playstation 4, and now is a large step closer to being reality.

Users will be able to rent games for streaming or purchase a subscription that promises usage of "a range of titles." That range has yet to be defined, as will the nature of pricing for these services, but the service is still some ways from full release. A closed beta for US users will reportedly begin before the end of the month.

Playstation Now's release will be in waves, with the service initially coming out for the Playstation 3 and Playstation 4 followed by the Playstation Vita. The initial release will not be worldwide, as PAL regions' connection speeds face their own set of issues before anything can be safely put out.

There was also a cloud service for live TV, DVR, and on demand announced as part of their overall initiative, though more specific details on that front will be coming in the future.

It's impressive, to say the least, and even more so is that it is not just pie-in-the-sky thinking; CES attendees were able to personally play around with The Last of Us using the service. I've not thought much of the idea of cloud gaming being the future, but this is quite a step forward.