CES 2014: First-hand impressions on the PlayStation Now

Here's a cumulative look at the first-hand impressions of Sony's PlayStation Now, announced at the Consumer Electronics Show at Las Vegas, from a variety of respected tech outlets.


[Also see: What is PlayStation Now?]

Overall, these testers were able to play three games on Sony BRAVIA TVs and the Vita: The Last of Us, Beyond: Two Souls, and God of War: Ascension.

Dale North from Destructoid found some issues in the technical quality of the Bravia set-up, but nothing out of the ordinary for something that's streamed. Overall, he came away very impressed.

...[E]verything I tried played wonderfully. Both the Vita and Bravia setups played well enough that there's really nothing to talk about here. It is actually easy to not be impressed because it works exactly as you'd expect. Responsive, lag free, and totally without incident -- flawless. It remains to be seen if we'll see as respectable performance over wireless and Internet connections. And we have yet to try mobile and tablet play.

Scott Lowe from IGN praised the Vita's streaming capability and was even more impressed with how Sony making their streaming service available on multiple platforms that aren't Sony-branded.

What surprised me...is Sony's embrace of non-Sony products for PlayStation Now. Although specific partnerships have not been confirmed, Sony has said that it will extend PlayStation 3 games to smartphones, tablets, or even TVs outside of its own family of products. It's a distinctly out of character for Sony, which has historically tied software and experiences to its own proprietary hardware.

Michael McWhertor of Polygon was impressed that the thing actually worked. Like others, he noted "lag input" and "compression artifacts," but everything was "more than playable."

Performance in games like The Last of Us and God of War: Ascension was impressive. Lag input was noticeable, seemingly more so on Vita when moving The Last of Us' Joel and waiting a beat for him to respond, but more than playable. Even the higher frame rate, faster paced action of Ascensionwas playable, though compression artifacts and more muted colors were present.

Image credit: Flickr 

Here's why the PlayStation 4 will cost $1850 in Brazil

There's a lot of outrage over how Sony could charge Brazil R$3999 for the PlayStation 4, but someone that actually lives in the country gives a thorough examination on the situation and justifies the high cost of the new console.

A 32-year-old Brazilian with the nickname "ManWithNoName" posted on the Destructoid community blog about how the country's government charges the most insane taxes in the world. That, along with import costs and added taxes on taxes, makes the cost so high.

See, this is how it works. When Sony bring the PS4 here, they pay the import taxes that can go up to 60% of the price. So a PS4 that costs 399USD goes up to 638,40USD. And that doesn't count the transportation, storage and port fees. After this initial taxes, when Sony sell it to retailers, there are a whole lot of new taxes, like PIS, IPI and Cofins. Those can go up to 40% of the imported price. And since Sony need to add their own cost of distribution and storage, which amounts circa 200USD, so we have 838,40+40% equals 1173,76. And them it have to go to retailers, who don't sell it here at low profits like 15USD. They have all their own costs, that are very high due to the insane Brazilian taxes. So they add their own costs, again something near 200USD, so 1373,76 more a lot of new taxes that can go up to 40% again equals 1923,26 USD.

The author believes that Sony could even be eating some costs to keep it under R$4000. It's a rough estimate, but just looking at the numbers blows the mind.

Microsoft's Xbox One will cost over $800 less for Brazilians, but that's due to the console being manufactured in Brazil. Obviously, they don't have to worry about import fees. The author states that Sony is "focused on the Chinese factories right now" and could manufacture PS4s sometime in 2014.

Sony explained why the retail price is so high in Brazil in an NPR article that was posted last night, citing that it gives the console a bad image. While it's good to hear it from the company, it's valuable to hear it from a casual person that's actually in the area.

[Image credit: Flickr]

Tokyo Game Show 2013: PS Vita TV hands-on reaction

Lots of gaming outlets got their hands on the new PS Vita TV that's due to be released in Japan on November 14th. While there's no currently scheduled release in North America, plenty of journalists from these neck of the woods were impressed with the tiny device. Many of them believe it would find a good audience here.

First off, the PS Vita TV an incredibly small device, kind of like a Roku or Apple TV device, that connects right to your TV through an HDMI output. Also included is a USB port, Ethernet cable port, and a PS Vita game card slot.

That's right, almost all of the games that can be played on PS Vita can be played on this tiny device. Obviously, games that require touch screen would be eliminated, but that's a very small portion of its library.

Basically, it's a PS Vita that uses a TV as a monitor and a DualShock 3 as its controller, and it comes at the price of just $99.

Sam Byford from The Verge talks about the user interface of the PS Vita TV, and it doesn't change much from it's handheld brethren.

The Vita TV's heritage is most apparent in the interface, which is lifted directly from the portable. The cartoonish bubbles weren't the most attractive thing in the world when the Vita launched almost two years ago, and a large TV doesn't make for any more flattering a canvas. Still, as a basic launcher it works well enough, providing basic access to the Vita TV's other functions.

But that's not all! There's another feature that it can do just like the handheld version -- remote play for the PlayStation 4.

Toshi Nakamura from Kotaku gives a quick review of the feature.

I also got a chance to check out remote play for the PS4. Granted, it was in a controlled environment, so there was no detectible [sic] lag. However, I was informed that while they are still in testing, things like network setup and distance will potentially affect lag times.
Knack ran smooth as butter in HD, but who knows if it'll be able to perform like in [the "A Day with PlayStation"] ad.

Dale North from Destructoid had a varying opinion on the image quality of remote play.

With streaming play, gone is that high end gloss the PS4's graphical muscle provides. The meat and potatoes of the images are still there, but you can see compression easily, and colors and details suffer. The resolution was certainly lower than the original. It certainly doesn't look bad. Remote play of PS4 games looks just like watching a nice HD stream of gameplay on the internet.

North points out that it doesn't make the device bad, as it's a tremendous deal for $100 to play PS4 games in a different room without having to move the console anywhere. 

Along with similar features that are packed in a Roku, there would definitely be a market in North America for the PS Vita TV. Sony may have found a way to save their portable system with this cheaper alternative, and plenty of gamers will be happy that if games ever did force touch control, none of that will be happening if this device succeeds.

[Image credit: Flickr]

Deadpool Accidently $60 at PlayStation Store, Sony Gives Back Credit

PlayStation owners that bought Deadpool on the PlayStation Store may not have realized that they actually were overcharged for the game.

The retail price for Deadpool is $49.99, which is exactly $10 less than what it was offered on the PS Store. Sony will be giving back $10 in PSN credit to everyone that purchased the game before the fix.

There's an interesting brawl going on in the Destructoid comments, mostly between a moderator and a general commenter, on all sorts of topics such as Sony "breaking the law" by doing this.

No, Sony didn't break any law, nor was this any sort of price gouging. It was a simple mistake on their end that they thought it was at standard retail price, but in legal terms a store can charge the consumer anything.

Hell, Sony could charge $5 for Deadpool today if they wanted to, but they would be losing money for both themselves and the publisher that made the game, and said publisher would demand to either take the game off or charge it at a higher price.

While Sony could simply shrug and go, "Whoops," they actually went out of their way to credit gamers so they wouldn't feel ripped off and it wouldn't leave a bad image on the company. Sure, it'd be nice to be able to get that credit back on whatever form of payment the consumer made, but I highly doubt that anybody that was okay on dropping $60 in the PS Store would never drop $10 more for the rest of their life.

Just remember, before bitching about losing $10, realize you'll lose a lot more than that after dinner with the girlfriend and she finally cheats on you with the next door neighbor. And it's not hard to look up prices on a game -- cheap asses like myself have been getting away with it for years.

[Source: Destructoid]

[Image credit: Flickr/greyloch]

Critics Praise Latest PS3 Exclusive, The Last of Us

Universal praise of the game developed by the same company that created the Uncharted series has another hit on their hands and perhaps another reason to pull the trigger for late PlayStation adopters.

The Last of Us, developed by Naughty Dog, has received very high critical acclaim from all over the internet, receiving perfect scores from a variety of trusted gaming websites like IGN, Destructoid, Joystiq, Games Radar, and a recommendation from Kotaku.

Metacritic currently has a 96 rating for the game; all 57 reviews factored into the score are positive. The lowest scores for the game are a couple of 80s from GameSpot and Toronto Sun, and 75 is the lowest over at Polygon.

Bottom line from all the reviews: the quality is top notch. It's arguably the best survival horror game ever made, and is right there in best game of the year conversation. Those expecting an Uncharted-like adventure will be in for a surprise.

Considering TLOU's genre, it won't reach the same number of sales that the later Uncharted games reached, and it won't even touch the Xbox exclusives, but it's a game that every PlayStation owner should pick up soon unless survival horror just doesn't fit their style.

All of the collector's editions have been scooped up and already being resold for nearly double their value on eBay, but since it's a new IP not many were available to begin with unlike the Uncharted 3 collector's editions (which still can be found for about $50 brand new -- I should just open mine up and enjoy it by now).

I purchased a $48 preorder on Newegg last year and cancelled it a few months ago with all the backlog that's added up on both the PS3 and Vita (and Wii...yeah, right, I'll get around to those...). Now, while slightly disappointed in the decision after reading fews, I expect to find a deal around $40 or less especially around Black Friday.

[Source: Metacritic]
[Photo credit: Flickr/naughty_dog]