Earlier this week, Sony announced (fulfilling the prophecy of announcements three, which was foretold by us) that they would be hopping on the cloud gaming bandwagon by releasing some classic PS3 titles on PS5 via the format. That’s all well and good, but there’s a snag. See, said bandwagon isn’t exactly… tangible. Or reliable. Or, some would argue, any bloody good at all.
You see, unlike the traditional physical cartridge/disc/whatever, or what most people think of when they hear the word ‘digital copy’ (i.e. something saved locally to your console), cloud gaming works a little differently. You don’t actually, well, own the game. When you boot one up, your system connects over the internet to a faraway server in a distant land, which plays the game for you and just streams the video to your TV.
PS3 cloud games?
In effect, your inputs are being registered by the console, beamed across the nation to the server playing the game, actioned in the game, then beamed back to your home for the display to finally show whatever move you just performed. It’s a bit of a palaver, and you can see why poorer internet connections, or certain games in general, would not make for a fantastically immersive experience. I’ve been playing Kingdom Hearts via cloud on the Switch lately, and though it’s probably the only way they could cram the whole series into Nintendo’s diminutive gadget, it’s a bit of a miserable time on harder difficulties. Screw you, Donald; I asked you to heal!
It stings all the more, then, that Sony are opting to use this service for PS3 games, when PS1 and PS2 titles are going to be offered in the usual manner – and there’s really no reason why the PS5 can’t run 2008 games natively. I mean, come on. However, as Video Games Chronicle reports, a solution may be on the way. Reportedly, having heard the backlash to the concept of cloud streaming, Sony “could be working on an emulation” alternative for PS3 software. This tip comes courtesy of journalist Jeff Grubb, whose “sources have indicated” the behind-the-scenes switcheroo may be in motion. Ah, gotta love that vague, responsibility-dodging wording.
Grubby words
When the PS Plus Premium service, which is where all these games will be accessed from, “for $17.99/£13.49 a month, subscribers will gain benefits including access to 340 games from the original PlayStation, PS2, PS3 and PSP generations.” Grubb, though, sheds a little more light on what may be going on with the odd inconsistency of all the service’s perks. “Since talking about this all week, I’ve looked, I’ve asked… it sounds like Sony might be working on emulation for PS3 on PS5,” he said. “It may take some time. I wish they would come out and tell us that. Tell us that you care about this stuff because that is what was missing from the PS Plus announcement… to me, it seemed like they didn’t care about any of it. They just slapped it together, put a new name on it and sold it”. Yee-owch.
Speculation has swirled as to why Sony opted to just dump PS3 on cloud in the first place, rather than building a workable emulator from the get-go. A general consensus (albeit not one which Sony would ever acknowledge) is that the PS3’s architecture was fairly unique, as was discovered rather infamously by many a failed third party effort, making its emulation quite difficult. But who knows? Maybe they just couldn’t be bovvered, innit.
What do you make of this whole thing? Will you be subscribing? Do you see cloud gaming as our future, or our doom? Let us know!
Via, Video Games Chronicle.
