Depending on what region you live in, you might be able to stream PS5 games in a matter of days.
Sony is set to officially launch the ability to play cloud-streamed PS5 games on your PS5 in Japan, Europe, and North America beginning later in October, the company announced in a PlayStation Blog post on Wednesday.
Streaming PS5 games will be a perk for people who subscribe to PlayStation Plus Premium, the most expensive tier of Sony’s PlayStation Plus offerings (which recently got a price hike). Sony plans to roll out the feature in phases, with the below target release dates for each region:
- Japan: October 17th
- Europe: October 23rd
- North America: October 30th
To start, Sony is promising that you’ll be able to stream “select” PS5 games, but it plans to have “hundreds” of PS5 games available for streaming down the line. The cloud streaming-compatible games will include titles from the PlayStation Plus Game Catalog, digital games players might own like Resident Evil 4, Genshin Impact, and Fortnite, and even game trials for titles like Hogwarts Legacy and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. However, Sony didn’t specify which of these games will be available when the feature initially rolls out.
Sony also says you’ll be able to pick your preferred streaming resolution, with options including 4K, 1440p, 1080p, and 720p. However, Sony says that PS5 game streaming will only work on PS5s “at launch,” which leads me to think that you’ll be able to stream PS5 games to other devices at some point in the future.
Sony has been gearing up for a cloud gaming push for a while now, starting its official tests of cloud-streamed PS5 games in June. (Cloud streaming seems like it would be a natural fit for the forthcoming PlayStation Portal handheld, but that device only supports streaming games over Wi-Fi from your PS5.) Fingers crossed that the cloud-streamed PS5 games work well; we’re looking forward to trying them out to see how well they play.
