They already mentioned in some IR slide that somewhere in the future they plan to release PS5 games in PS Now. And also to release PS Now clients in more devices like smartphones, tablets and smart tvs. I can't find these slide now, but found these other ones where they mentioned their plans for the future, where they show indirectly plans to scale PS Now after the PS5 launch, to expand it to more off-console device and scale their servers capacity:
From 2 years ago, Sony IR Day 2019 (Game & Network Segment)
https://www.sony.com/en/SonyInfo/IR/library/presen/irday/pdf/2021/GNS_E.pdf
2 years later, Sony IR day 2021:
Edit: If this is true, they should be working heavily on expanding to other countries.
What's the point when PS Now is only available is VERY limited countries?
As you can see in the slides shown above, they plan to scale it up faster in the near future. Many apps or services are first developed, tested and tweaked with a relatively small sample of the users. Once the business is mature and profitable enough they scale it up bringing it to more users or countries.
They do that because the server costs are very expensive (more in the case of game streaming), because since latency is key in game streaming so they must place data centers (this is, physical servers) pretty close to the users.
In addition to this, PS Now or xCloud don't use a random physical server, the same PC based one that is used for all the normal cloud based apps or websites. Their servers basically have console based hardware adapted to be in a server rack and to work for streaming.
So for them to support a new country is a bigger effort and cost because in addition to rent data center capacity in these countries (often outsourced to 3rd data center companies who rent their services to cloud companies and cloud based apps or websites) they don't use the normal hardware they have to stream, but instead bring their own one.
For these reason, PS Now and xCloud are limited to a handful of dozen of countries, and over time they slowly keep adding more. Once they consider the system is ready for a big growth to a more mainstream audience, they will scale it up faster.
Sony also filled other patents relatively recently to support 5G and add some related optimizations, something that will help in some countries with a not so good fiber/cable based internet connections but instead good 5G/4G coverage in main cities.
You're right. One charges a subscription fee to download games to your console or stream them from the cloud for as little as $10 per month with a $1 one month trial. The other...charges a subscription fee to download games to your console or stream them from the cloud for as little as $10 per month with a $1 one month trial. completely different business models!
Yes, but one includes mostly old games to keep this service as a secondary support business that doesn't negatively impact their primary business: the revenue from game sales. The other one instead focuses on including in the subscription important games day one with the idea of replacing with the revenue from this service the game sales revenue. A pretty different approach.
I just want PS5 games on PSNow for download. Where they at Sony?
PS5 games are too new and Sony doesn't want to negatively impact game sales with PS Now. Very likely they'll wait until they mostly completed their sales cycle, so probably will include in the subscription PS5 games once they are 1 or 2 years old.
