Earlier this month, we saw reports of Sony Interactive Entertainment working on its own Game Pass equivalent. It will also involve merging PlayStation Now into PlayStation Plus, and then splitting the latter into different subscription tiers. But court documents from the ongoing trail between Apple and Epic Games reveal that SIE had been working to bring its streaming service to mobile platforms.
The Verge reports that back in 2017, Apple knew of a “not-yet-announced mobile extension of an existing streaming service for PlayStation users”. The service was described as giving subscribers access to over 450 PS3 games, with PS4 games to follow. There was also a presentation slide that labelled PS Now as a mobile subscription service.
According to the report, said presentation slide has something to do with Apple working on its own game subscription service. But it won’t be until two years later, in 2019, that the iPhone maker reveals it as Apple Arcade.
Until now, Sony hasn’t used PS Now as a service to make the kind of big waves Xbox has with its Game Pass or Cloud Gaming. On one hand, it may have given up on trying to work with the limitations that Apple has set for such services, the way Microsoft had. But on the other, it may have focused on making it possible with the revamped PS Plus subscription instead. If it is indeed the latter, here’s hoping the PS Now bits become available on this side of the globe.
(Source: The Verge)
