Sony's PlayStation Now service, which will start by letting players stream a selection of PlayStation 3 games on their PlayStation 4, won't be in open beta until the end of July. The service is in closed beta right now, though, and Sony's initial pricing experiments for the service have begun to leak out. The prices are, as Kotaku bluntly put it, "currently insane." Sony is charging up to $5 for a four-hour rental period and up to $30 for 90 days of access to a game like Final Fantasy XIII-2, a game that sells new for roughly half that price on disc. A game like Guacamelee costs $15 for either a 90-day rental or a full download on PSN.
It's important to note that these prices aren't final and could easily change by the time PS Now launches in open beta or afterward. It's also important to note that Sony has mentioned some sort of subscription plan for PlayStation Now, which would presumably provide Netflix-style all-you-could-play access for some sort of monthly fee. That would seem much easier to stomach than à la carte streaming game rentals, depending on the specific price Sony charges.
Looking at PlayStation Now pricing as it currently stands, though, we're beginning to think that the problem isn't the prices themselves but the whole idea of renting out streaming games for limited real-world time spans.
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