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Sony: An update on the all-new PlayStation Plus regional release date

There still isn’t anything around that can fully replicate CELL running at PS3 max speed. Those SPUs are crazy even til now.
The Xbox One could emulate 360 games but the PS5 can't emulate PS3 games? Come on, I was ok with that excuse for the PS4 but now we even have an emulator on PC capable of running multiple games, made by people on their spare time without all the access Sony would have.

What's even worse is the fact that Sony never acknowledge this problem, if they said that they were not going to do it but that they would be porting and working with partners to port some key titles that remain stranded on the PS3 that would be very acceptable. But what we get is this PS3 streaming garbage that they can't even properly deploy even after so many years.

You're making zero sense.

If people only care to stream PS3 games, does that mean every other streaming service is completely pointless?
Jesus, you are hopeless. Even the very few PS Now subscribers heavily favored downloading games. The service never took off on PC because people aren't that into streaming games and Sony failed miserably to expand the service (likely for the reason that I pointed out in the first place and that you took issue with, reliance on ancient PS3 hardware).

It makes very little sense to stream games on a console that could just download and play them.
 
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PS Now wasn't just on consoles that could download and play them.
It also wasn't popular at all, it was an absolute failure despite being the only place where people could play PS3 games on PS4/PS5/PC and the only place some PS4 exclusives were available on PC. Gaming streaming isn't something people were willing to pay for or cared about, how many failed attempts do we need to see before we can accept that?
 
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kungfuian

Member
How? You currently have Plus and Now. You will instead have the tier of Plus that includes what you currently get from Now (and stuff you don't get right now).
My PlayStation now subscription will convert to that higher level in June on its own and would last until 4/24. So essentially the PlayStation Plus that I have becomes worthless even though it's paid through to next year? IE I would have the same exact service starting in June whether I had my PlayStation Plus or not.
 

RoadHazard

Gold Member
My PlayStation now subscription will convert to that higher level in June on its own and would last until 4/24. So essentially the PlayStation Plus that I have becomes worthless even though it's paid through to next year? IE I would have the same exact service starting in June whether I had my PlayStation Plus or not.

"I have Plus until 4/23 and Now until 4/24"

?!

Maybe I don't understand what you mean by these dates. Do you mean April 2023 and April 2024? So you Plus ends a year before your Now? Then... I still don't understand lol.
 

kungfuian

Member
"I have Plus until 4/23 and Now until 4/24"

?!

Maybe I don't understand what you mean by these dates. Do you mean April 2023 and April 2024? So you Plus ends a year before your Now? Then... I still don't understand lol.
Yes I have two different subscriptions my PlayStation Plus ends April next year and my PlayStation now ends April 2024.
 

HarryKS

Member
They still haven't said anything about an upgrade path for existing plus users rolling in who might want to upgrade to a higher tier.
 

SkylineRKR

Member
I think it will be like this:

If you have Plus running, it will simply change to Essential which is sort of the same deal. If you have Plus+Now running, you will get Premium. This is a no brainer.

If you have just Now running, I assume you will get Premium. Now is the service that disappears after all, and even before the news (and the sudden stackers) there obviously are gamers who have a year left or more still. They paid for it up front. And there probably aren't that many who only have PS Now and not Plus. Another reason is that, unless i'm mistaken, only the Premium tier offers PS3 streaming. And this was initially the draw of PS Now. So handing out Now users any lower tier would be a dick move.

Simply put, if you've stacked Now and didn't extend Plus, you probably win. My Plus runs out next month and I've taken Now from here so fingers crossed.
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
So... what happens if we have both Plus and Now right now?
Going by this site, you get upgraded to the top tier for free.


When the tiered subscription service launches, PlayStation Now will no longer be offered as a standalone service, and existing customers will migrate to PlayStation Plus Premium with no increase to their current subscription fees at launch.
 

RoadHazard

Gold Member
Yes I have two different subscriptions my PlayStation Plus ends April next year and my PlayStation now ends April 2024.

How does that mean you're losing Plus months you've paid for? You mean because if you only had Now you would still get the same tier of the new Plus? Not sure we know that's the case, but if so I suppose that yes, you're "losing" money there compared to someone who only has Now.
 
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Going by this site, you get upgraded to the top tier for free.


When the tiered subscription service launches, PlayStation Now will no longer be offered as a standalone service, and existing customers will migrate to PlayStation Plus Premium with no increase to their current subscription fees at launch.

Yeah, I understand that. But what happens if we have two overlapping subscriptions currently (Now and Plus)? Will they stack.. or?
 
The Xbox One could emulate 360 games but the PS5 can't emulate PS3 games? Come on, I was ok with that excuse for the PS4 but now we even have an emulator on PC capable of running multiple games, made by people on their spare time without all the access Sony would have.

What's even worse is the fact that Sony never acknowledge this problem, if they said that they were not going to do it but that they would be porting and working with partners to port some key titles that remain stranded on the PS3 that would be very acceptable. But what we get is this PS3 streaming garbage that they can't even properly deploy even after so many years.


Jesus, you are hopeless. Even the very few PS Now subscribers heavily favored downloading games. The service never took off on PC because people aren't that into streaming games and Sony failed miserably to expand the service (likely for the reason that I pointed out in the first place and that you took issue with, reliance on ancient PS3 hardware).

It makes very little sense to stream games on a console that could just download and play them.
Members of the ICE team and other engine leads at Sony studios have gone on record to say that while the vast majority of games on PS3 can run well on the currently available emulators, the games that really pushed the SPUs and optimised the entire game around them (such as the Uncharteds, TLOU, Killzone etc) don’t run well at all and would require a lot of post processing effects to be removed.

I think if we were ever to get a native emulator it would have a whitelist of games. There is a reason Sony bought Gakai and did ports. They were acutely aware of the problem the PS3 presented.

The Xbox 360 isn’t as hard to emulate, but even then Microsoft have had to devise game by game wrappers that spoof the system into thinking it’s a native game. This is why licensing is an issue for that method as each game needs to get approval again, whereas a blanket emulator wouldn’t.
 
Members of the ICE team and other engine leads at Sony studios have gone on record to say that while the vast majority of games on PS3 can run well on the currently available emulators, the games that really pushed the SPUs and optimised the entire game around them (such as the Uncharteds, TLOU, Killzone etc) don’t run well at all and would require a lot of post processing effects to be removed.

I think if we were ever to get a native emulator it would have a whitelist of games. There is a reason Sony bought Gakai and did ports. They were acutely aware of the problem the PS3 presented.

The Xbox 360 isn’t as hard to emulate, but even then Microsoft have had to devise game by game wrappers that spoof the system into thinking it’s a native game. This is why licensing is an issue for that method as each game needs to get approval again, whereas a blanket emulator wouldn’t.
A lot of games have been ported already, we just need the emulator to work for the remaining games like Resistance, Killlzone, Metal Gear Solid 4, etc, or for Sony to make an effort to port them.
 
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A lot of games have been ported already, we just need the emulator to work for the remaining games like Resistance, Killlzone, Metal Gear Solid 4, etc, or for Sony to make an effort to port them.

I can’t speak for MGS4, but there must be a reason why Sony haven’t bothered with Killzone, Resistance or InFamous. It is odd.
 
I can’t speak for MGS4, but there must be a reason why Sony haven’t bothered with Killzone, Resistance or InFamous. It is odd.
There's also games that are not necessarily exclusive to PS3 like Red Dead Redemption or the Metal Gear Solid Collection that you can't play on PS5 because of the lack of backwards compatibility.

If Sony had at least bothered with porting their own games then the pressure would be on other devs to do the same (most other publishers did a better job already anyway). Sony didn't do it for most of their games (on top of what I already mentioned there's also Ratchet and Clank games, Motorstorm, Sly, Heavenly Sword and a lot of other Sony games).

I think Sony just didn't think those games would sell enough to justify the port, they bothered with porting Uncharted, God of War and The Last of Us after all.
 
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N1tr0sOx1d3

Given another chance
Says who?

Are they? They never publicly acknowledged this problem. It's no a new problem, it's a problem that has existed (at least on their backend) for almost 10 years now, ever since they came up with PSNow as a "solution" to the lack of backwards compatibility.

Can you stream PS5 games?



There is no credible evidence that a PS3 emulator is in the works.
Cell blade servers are not cost effective, expensive and difficult to scale.
You can absolutely bet a PS3 emulator is in the works.
 
Cell blade servers are not cost effective, expensive and difficult to scale.
You can absolutely bet a PS3 emulator is in the works.
So why doesn't Sony make that information public? A simple "we are working on it but it's going to take some time" would be enough after so many years of pretending cloud streaming is a solutions to this problem.

As I've said before, I'm not confident to a assume Sony is doing that due to their recent history, they could just as well have a plan to shut down these Cell blade servers in the future and leave it at that.

They didn't bother that much with PS1/PS2/PSP legacy games during the entire PS4 generation, removed the access to PS One Classics people had already bought on the PS3, put very little effort in making more of those games available and came up with unnecessary requirements for those game to release on PS4.

The only thing Sony got right so far when it comes to retro compatibility was the PS4 games on PS5.
 
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N1tr0sOx1d3

Given another chance
So why doesn't Sony make that information public? A simple "we are working on it but it's going to take some time" would be enough after so many years of pretending cloud streaming is a solutions to this problem.

As I've said before, I'm not confident to a assume Sony is doing that due to their recent history, they could just as well have a plan to shut down these Cell blade servers in the future and leave it at that.

They didn't bother that much with PS1/PS2/PSP legacy games during the entire PS4 generation, removed the access to PS One Classics people had already bought on the PS3, put very little effort in making more of those games available and came up with unnecessary requirements for those game to release on PS4.

The only thing Sony got right so far when it comes to retro compatibility was the PS4 games on PS5.
One would presume rightly or wrongly, that demand requires it. If tier 3 proves popular, their streaming capabilities won’t scale at the rate demand dictates and again it’s expensive. The ability to download and play PS3 games locally just makes logical sense.
Time will tell…… if I’m wrong I’m happy to hold my hand up. Probably won’t be PS5, but PS6 doing this.
 

T-Cake

Member
Does anyone think that Assassins Creed Origins will be a game included with the new PS+? Ubisoft is supposed to be on board and it seems strange that Microsoft should be announcing it as a Game Pass title two months beforehand. And what happens in two months? The new PS+.

Only asking to save me buying a copy. 😂
 

Justin9mm

Member
No Australia as expected lul
No cloud streaming but at least we are getting the new plus service earlier, we are part of Asia markets

Edit: I was wrong.. As posted above we are getting it on June 22nd. Not sure why they have not listed us in those above geographic categories, we are part of Asia market. We are by definition an Asian country.
 
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kyliethicc

Member
So no info on upgrading from existing 12 month plus membership, curious to know how that will work and if Sony will end up screwing us!?
You can upgrade. Just gotta pay the difference for your existing term.

Lets say you currently have 6 months of a PS Plus (Essential) yearly sub remaining. Was $60/year.

You want to upgrade to PS Plus Extra. Costs $100/year.

$100-$60=$40 ($40/12)*6=$20

So you’d be able to convert your remaining 6 months of Plus to Extra for $20.


From a Sony email:

You can easily upgrade to a higher benefits plan at any time. To do so, you'll need to pay the difference between your current plan and your new plan, adjusted for the remaining time of your subscription.
 
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CamHostage

Member
The Xbox One could emulate 360 games but the PS5 can't emulate PS3 games? Come on, I was ok with that excuse for the PS4 but now we even have an emulator on PC capable of running multiple games, made by people on their spare time without all the access Sony would have.


You're thinking of it as in, "That's old, and new stuff is newer, so of course the new thing can do the old thing, easy." It isn't that way, unfortunately.

The way Sony did things with PS3 (and PS2 before it) was the hard way, with intense use of dedicated processor units that just don't have equivalents in modern processors, as well as unstandardized techniques that do not conform to traditional methods of producing graphics or gaming. It's the reason why game developers kept cursing Sony hardware back in the day for being so difficult to develop for, as you could achieve great results but you had to fight for every inch you gained with the hardware, balancing everything like spinning plates always. (In the PS2 era, it's a reason why Xbox and Gamecube ports could often come out nice when games were ported over, because all the super-hard work was done and the Xbox/Cube gave extra legroom plus more standardized approaches to accessing its hardware plus its more modern year-younger hardware... and also, some PS2 games still came out superior despite a leap in graphic abilities just in time for Xbox and Cube that PS2 didn't have. 360 was a little bit that way too, although it didn't have significant advantages or headroom the way Xbox did and like-like software wasn't all that different, but it was a more PC-like chipset and emulation is for the most part coming along easier, though 360 has some quirks too.) The end results, in the hands of elite-level developers, is truly amazing game displays for the era, but it's only possible thanks to the weird way the hardware could be pushed.



That isn't to say that these old games couldn't be "made to run" on modern hardware... they just can't be done the same way on modern hardware that's not made to work that hard in that way. Either the games need to be ported to current, normal-assed ways of doing things (sometimes without compromises, as, again, they did things the hard way, and not because they were trying to do things that would be forever impossible to do again, it's just that Sony's machines at the time didn't have an "easy way" in them,) or find some way to translate the particular aspects of the console to run on ways new machines can understand it without the new machine losing step ever in the handling. Normal emulation has a lot of "good enough, keep going" to it, where you the player don't notice how inaccurate the emulation is because most of what you see and hear and play looks fine, sometimes even better than the original. You stop losing the magic handwave trick once you get to these machines; now you have to find the way to really bend the spoon with your mind.
 
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Only 2 downloadable games per month with PlayStation Plus Essential?

Sad Cry GIF by RauwCC
 
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NinjaBoiX

Gold Member
So when is the cut off date in EU to take advantage of the upgrade offer?

So I basically buy a few years sub to PS Now and it’ll upgrade to PS Premium?
 

phil_t98

#SonyToo
So its not set in stone the dates, it says “targeting”. Hopefully that could shift forward and not backwards
 

T-Cake

Member
So when is the cut off date in EU to take advantage of the upgrade offer?

So I basically buy a few years sub to PS Now and it’ll upgrade to PS Premium?

Unless you can find 12-month cards in a local retailer, it is not possible. The option to buy more than one month at a time has been removed from the website.
 

NinjaBoiX

Gold Member
Unless you can find 12-month cards in a local retailer, it is not possible. The option to buy more than one month at a time has been removed from the website.
OK, so assuming I can buy 12 month cards from a reputable source, how many can I stack to turn into PS Premium?

I was planning to get 2 years at least, maybe 3 years…
 

bitbydeath

Member
Looks like the amount of PS+ games aren’t changing, as some had expected.

Enhance your PlayStation experience with core features, including online multiplayer access, two PS4 and one PS5 game to download every month, exclusive discounts, and more.
 

SkylineRKR

Member
The mail implies that you won't migrate if one of your subs ends. So you likely need to have Plus and Now both running when this launches.

So if you have Now only and paid for it, you lose PS3 streaming unless you pay extra to meet the Premium tier?
 
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T-Cake

Member
The mail implies that you won't migrate if one of your subs ends. So you likely need to have Plus and Now both running when this launches.

So if you have Now only and paid for it, you lose PS3 streaming unless you pay extra to meet the Premium tier?

No, they can't take away a service you've already paid for. I have PS Now until October and I'm expecting to be on the top tier for the remaining four months. My PS Plus runs out in 10 days.
 

NinjaBoiX

Gold Member
The mail implies that you won't migrate if one of your subs ends. So you likely need to have Plus and Now both running when this launches.

So if you have Now only and paid for it, you lose PS3 streaming unless you pay extra to meet the Premium tier?
I’m trying to work this out too…

But if you look at the nuts and bolts of it, the only tier based on their new model that allows streaming is the premium tier, so it stands to reason that they’d have to upgrade anyone currently subscribed to PS Now to the premium tier, lest they lose access to a feature they’ve already paid upfront for.

I think a standard PS+ sub only really matters if you don’t also have a PS Now sub, in that scenario you’d be brought over to the “Essential” tier, in which case you wouldn’t lose out on anything.

They can’t legally revoke features that you’ve already paid for because they changed their offering, so any current PS Now sub must surely become a PS Premium sub after the switch.
 

Kagey K

Banned
Yeah, I understand that. But what happens if we have two overlapping subscriptions currently (Now and Plus)? Will they stack.. or?
You get extended to whichever one is longer. If one runs out in Aug and one runs out in Oct, your sub is good until Oct. The other one is essentially useless after the change.
 

Neolombax

Member
Pretty excited for this to be honest. Hope they show us the game catalog soon-ish. I'm almost set to get the PS Plus extra. A bummer that SEA region wont have the PS3 option, only for PS, PS2 and PSP. Hope we get it later on, but wont be holding my breath.
 

T-Cake

Member
Can somebody just confirm that I'm right in my question below?

I currently do not have PS+.
I have a PS Now sub until October.

If I buy 12 months of PS+ and add it to my account, I'll get the new PS+ Premium until May 2023?
 

Dick Jones

Gold Member
Can somebody just confirm that I'm right in my question below?

I currently do not have PS+.
I have a PS Now sub until October.

If I buy 12 months of PS+ and add it to my account, I'll get the new PS+ Premium until May 2023?
You PS Now sub turns into the top tier until the date your current PS Now ceases in October

I dont think the PS Store allows renewals at the moment (I can't put PS plus sub into a cart, see if you can). If you buy a card in the store, it might block you from activating the card until new ps plus is available to you. If you buy a PS+ card, it will pro rata against the top tier (there is a table showing the breakdown against tiers) or you can amend it down to the basic tier of new PS Plus.
 
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