Yesterday was a big day for Sony when it not only announced its stellar sales numbers of the PS4, but also Playstation Now. The cloud gaming service can be played on TVs, PS4, PS3, PS Vita units, and even smartphones and tablets. However, if you’d like to use the Playstation Now service for the latter two devices, you’ll need the DualShock 3 controller to pass Go.
In an interview with SCEA’s marketing VP John Koller, ComputersAndVideoGames got a few more additional details for Playstation Now, including input for devices that are touchscreen reliant:
Vita has adequate buttons and you’re using DualShock 3 controllers for the Bravia TV demo stations here. How will you tackle controller input challenges for playing PS3 games on a tablet?
It needs to go through the DualShock. The DualShock remains the key ingredient. So that controller experience needs to go perfectly. We didn’t want to utilise touch screen or anything like that because the games are best played with a DualShock.
So it requires the DualShock 3 on any platform PS Now comes to?
Yes it requires the DualShock. The DualShock 3 specifically. To enable tablet and smartphone play, you’ve got to have the DualShock 3.
So there you have it. If you want to be able to play Playstation Now games on your smartphone or tablet, then you’re going to need to dust off your PS3 controller to play, but the DualShock 4 controller will work just fine for PS4 users wanting to use the service. The decision isn’t terribly surprising, either. Onscreen controls take you out of the element when playing a game, and are hardly as accurate as a real controller.
Going back to the actually ‘smartphones and tablets’ bit, Koller stays pretty vague when asked about mobile OS support.
So iOS and Android are on the map?
Well, we’ve only said tablets and smartphones. But if you focus on larger categories of Bravia TVs, tablets, smartphones, it’s pretty impressive.
While this could clearly just be a simple dodge to avoid any official announcement for Playstation Now’s mobile support, we’re starting to wonder if Sony’s plans are to limit support to only Xperia smartphones and tablets. While we have our doubts that Sony would go this route, it would be an interesting tactic. Limiting Playstation Now support to only Sony smartphones might not make everyone happy, but it would be one hell of a feature to have exclusively. Just a thought.
Be sure to check out the full interview at the link below!
[Via: ComputersAndVideoGames]