PlayStation Now won’t be coming to Europe until 2015
The rollout of streaming game service PlayStation Now in Europe will only take place in the first quarter of 2015, according to a roadmap. Sony is said to have developed completely new PlayStation 3 hardware for the recently unveiled PlayStation Now service.
Sony will start a closed beta for the service at the end of this month, after which the rollout can take place in the summer. Sony also announced the launch in the summer when the service was announced, but it appears to be only for the US and Canada at first. Europe will have to wait until early 2015 for the launch of PlayStation Now, according to a roadmap published by EuroGamer. The PlayStation Now service should make games from the PlayStation 2 and PS3 streaming playable on Sony’s PS4, PS3 and the PlayStation Vita, but eventually also on many other devices.
Furthermore, the game site reports that Sony has developed special hardware for the service that can be regarded as eight PS3s on a motherboard, which takes place in a server rack. Sony would have experimented with regular PS3s, but they would take up too much space in the data centers and also consume much too much, EuroGamer concludes from information from sources that are allegedly familiar with the project. In addition, the new hardware would make it easier to make adjustments that can improve latency.
Improvements can probably be achieved by placing alternatives for the network interface, the controller input and HDMI on the motherboards. There is virtually no leeway with the Cell processor and the RSX GPU: adjustments to these parts cause incompatibility in the games.