“At least give us a real cloud game.” That’s what I’m asking for in the end A $200 device, I ultimately found it frustrating because it could only do one thing: stream games from the PlayStation 5. A year later Sony . The company has begun testing cloud streaming on Portal for PlayStation Plus Premium members, giving them instant access to over 120 PS5 titles. And once I started hating this thing less.
A little stream after the cloud Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Control and spirits of the devil, I just have one question for Sony: Why wasn’t this on the PlayStation Portal when it launched a year ago? I was surprised to find that cloud streaming was more reliable than Portal’s original PS5 remote play, which was (and remains) hit or miss. Sometimes it worked just fine, giving me something of value Spiderman 2 spent time on the couch and would sometimes refuse to connect to the PS5 for no apparent reason. (And yes, I have a pretty solid gigabit internet setup and a Wi-Fi 6 router.)
When I first tested PlayStation Portal, it failed my main criteria for testing consumer electronics: I just couldn’t trust it. But Sony’s cloud streaming is changing that. Now I can just hit the Cloud Play button in the Portal, wait 15-20 seconds for the service to launch, and wait another 20 seconds for the game of my choice to launch. It’s not exactly quick, but it’s not far off from the process of booting up your console and waiting for the game to load.
While playing Control I was shocked at how clear and smooth it looked on the cloud, with none of the lag I usually experience when streaming games. I also didn’t experience any of the video artifacts or lazy screen refreshing that I’ve encountered when playing cloud games over Xbox Game Pass. () for over a decade may finally pay off!
Control I ran at a smooth 60fps at 1080p in performance mode and had no trouble switching to 30fps fidelity mode, complete with ray tracing. I was also able to switch between quality settings Miles Morales easily. I always go for 60fps when I can (which is one of the main reasons I like the PS5 Pro so much), so it was nice to see Portal easily adjust to that framerate. I swung around Manhattan for 15 minutes and tackled a few side missions and it wasn’t that different from playing. Spiderman 2 In its full glory on the PS5 Pro.
As with most cloud services, your experience will be determined by your internet connection and the load on Sony’s servers. Xbox cloud streaming has gotten noticeably worse as more users jump into the future, and it’s unclear if Sony can handle similar demand. Portal cloud streaming is also limited to 120+ PS5 games on the PS Plus Premium service. There are notable titles such as The End of Us: Part 1 and Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergradebut most of the entries are older and not nearly as engaging (unless you’re really excited to play) Hotel Transylvania: Scary Fairytale Adventures). While you can stream digital games you own via PS Plus normally, Sony says this feature isn’t yet available for Portal. Again, this is something that will likely come up eventually.
While it’s nice to see Sony bring cloud streaming to the PlayStation Portal, it’s a feature that will appeal to people with more devices and PS Plus Premium members. You know, true PlayStation loyalists. And of course, streaming requires a decent internet connection to work properly, so I still wouldn’t recommend Portal as your best portable gaming option while traveling.
Cloud gaming also doesn’t solve my current problems with Portal. When I tried to compare it to Remote Play from PS5 Pro on Portal (above), it took eight minutes to connect to the console. Finally, I had to run downstairs, manually turn on the PS5 Pro, and log in to get the Portal to work. So much for the convenience of remote gaming! Spiderman 2 It looked worse in this mode than anything I’ve seen on cloudstream.
Funnily enough, this week Microsoft also announced a major streaming upgrade for Xbox: The Instead of being limited to what’s in the Game Pass library. This feature doesn’t work for every title, but it does include things like this Baldur’s Gate III and Cyberpunk 2077. I didn’t have many purchased Xbox titles to stream (I’m mostly a PC gamer these days), but I was able to stream easily. Final Fantasy II HD Pixel Remake Via XBPlay on Steam.
Forza Horizon 5 Xbox also looked decent over cloud streaming (above), but not perfect. Text was blurry, textures weren’t clear, and artifacts kept popping up as I raced around Mexico. It certainly didn’t look as good as games I’ve seen on PlayStation Plus or higher-quality streaming on services like NVIDIA’s GeForce Now.
If anything, this week’s Sony and Microsoft merger news is a sign that these companies need to put a little more energy into cloud streaming. We’ve been hearing about this technology for over a decade, but console manufacturers have been doing their best to accommodate and promote it. (Microsoft’s it’s a little confusing, but it’s also something the company should be shouting from the rooftops for years.)
with the rise of gaming handheld devicesand growing ambivalence toward expensive console hardware, cloud streaming has the potential to be more beneficial. But to get there, Sony and Microsoft need to make more streaming leaps instead of successive steps forward.
