Macs will be able to stream PS4 games over Wi-Fi 'soon,' Sony says
PlayStation 4 owners will soon be able to stream their games to a Mac or Windows PC via the console's Remote Play feature, Sony announced on Tuesday.
The option is coming with the PS4's next major software update, v3.50, Sony said. While that update is going into public beta testing on Wednesday, gamers will have to wait for the finished version of the software to try the extended Remote Play. Currently there is no official release date.
The technology currently streams games over Wi-Fi to a handful of Sony-made devices, including the PlayStation Vita, the PlayStation TV, and Xperia phones. Adding non-Sony platforms should significantly improve access.
Sony's chief rival in the console space, Microsoft, has allowed gamers to stream Xbox One titles to a Windows PC since the release of Windows 10 last year.
Some other planned upgrades in the PS4 update include friend login notifications, the ability to appear offline, and easier multiplayer with friends thanks to scheduled events and the display of what each member of a party is playing.
The option is coming with the PS4's next major software update, v3.50, Sony said. While that update is going into public beta testing on Wednesday, gamers will have to wait for the finished version of the software to try the extended Remote Play. Currently there is no official release date.
The technology currently streams games over Wi-Fi to a handful of Sony-made devices, including the PlayStation Vita, the PlayStation TV, and Xperia phones. Adding non-Sony platforms should significantly improve access.
Sony's chief rival in the console space, Microsoft, has allowed gamers to stream Xbox One titles to a Windows PC since the release of Windows 10 last year.
Some other planned upgrades in the PS4 update include friend login notifications, the ability to appear offline, and easier multiplayer with friends thanks to scheduled events and the display of what each member of a party is playing.
Comments
Sony's game streaming works pretty well.
Nice feature to have anyways if one has a PS4.
I do.
http://www.amazon.com/Vanguard-Personal-Environment-consoles-playstation-4/dp/B00H0R9DSG
I believe you cannot use the keyboard. You will still need a PS4 controller connected to the PC/Mac.
Also, does Remote Play stream the game video directly from one's PS4 to the target device, or is Sony actually sending the video directly from their servers? I would imagine that most people's internet upload speeds are too slow to stream HD video out to the internet.
Steam Streaming has no practical use because you're increasing the latency by a significant amount (yes even if the machines are side by side and connected by cross-over ethernet cables. Throw in WiFi and now there is an entire set of two RF conversions on top of the TCP/IP overhead.
From a practical sense, I'll name a few reasons why'd you want to stream the Video, but not actually play on the other device:
1) Competitive gaming. Stream the game to your recording station instead of inducing extra delays by splitting the video and sending it over a transcoding cycle just to reach the mixing computer.
2) Live streaming, where you combine your avatar/face with the game footage. This makes the most practical sense for this, but also isn't really the intent.
3) Play games on your big-screen TV instead of a computer monitor... wait wouldn't this mean streaming your Mac to the PS4 instead? See this is what Steam's "streaming" is designed for but rarely used as such. When you reverse it, play your PS4 on your PC/Mac, this is mainly a "I don't want to unhook all that crap in the living room" situation.
In practice the latency issues will make sure that people don't play single player games this way very long, because it requires re-training (think you're good at a game? try streaming your twitchy steam games to another computer and watch how you're not as good as you think you are.) This is why streaming games as video from PSN or Microsoft will never take off for the vast majority of single player games, there is just too much round-trip latency for it to be practical. Multiplayer is another animal, as the games are already designed around compensating for latency.
RemotePlay between PS3 and PSP exists for quite some time; From 2010 at least. Later on, it was expanded to PS3 to Vita and PS4 to Vita streaming.
Not sure about this part - but if Wiki got it right, PS3 to Sony Vaio computers was also enabled with PS3 firmware update back in 2010.
All that happens here is Sony expanding their tech at their pace.
It is not huge system mover for sure, but... for people who have PS4 plugged to main TV in living room (where it might be serving as BD player, too) it might be handy to be able to redirect game to different screen, when your other half wants to watch something. Especially for people who don't have more than one TV in their household, so moving PS4 is not an option.