Why Sony Thinks PlayStation Now Is So Important

Streaming services like PlayStation Now could be a big boon for publishers, helping them accumulate extra revenue from back catalog games long after release. That's according to Sony's Jack Buser, who told A List Daily, Buser said video games still have a ways to go to catch up to movies and music in this department.

"In the games industry, we've been very focused on the first few months after a game is released," he started off. "Unlike our friends in the movie and music industries, there wasn't as much of a long tail for the game industry. I think PlayStation Now has an extremely interesting role to play as the lifecycle of the game industry matures."

"This gives publishers the chance to rejuvenate the ability of a title to generate revenue," he added. "When we release a title into the subscription, we create quite a bit of buzz around a title that may not have been advertised for a year or two, even three years in some cases. Now because it's coming into the subscription, gamers are talking about the title, they're curious about the title, and it's like this breath of fresh air into a franchise or even an individual title that previously was very difficult to do in this industry."

Buser goes on to say that the response to PlayStation Now so far has been positive, thanks in part to the service's new $20/month subscription offering.

"Year over year, we've seen a 300 percent increase in PS Now users," he said. "This is largely due to the subscription being so compelling. If you look at usage per week, average usage is going to be about four hours, which is a very high engagement metric. If you look at it per session, we're looking at about 45 minutes a session, and for popular games over an hour."

"You can see that people are coming in, playing for very long sessions, and then they're playing multiple sessions per week to get to that very high average per week of four hours," he added. "That's where that new user experience becomes so important, because when you have such a large growth in your user base and they are so engaged in not just one but several games, it's important to give them a rich user interface to help them more easily transition to other games they might not have otherwise checked out."

Just this week, Sony rolled out a major makeover for PlayStation Now's UI on PlayStation 4. Check out some screenshots of the new UI here.

For more on PlayStation Now, be sure to read the full interview.