PlayStation Now Prices Are Currently Insane

Sony has added prices to the beta for their PlayStation Now streaming service, and though these are experimental numbers—it's a beta, after all—the current prices are insane.12

What's more, as of right now, PS Now beta testers actually have to pay to play games. If I want to test out the service, I have to dish out crazy amounts of cash.

This afternoon I signed up for the PS Now beta, which Steve tested out yesterday. And here's how much it costs to rent Final Fantasy XIII-2, which came out in 2012:

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$5 for four hours! $30 for 90 days! You can buy the whole game on Amazon for $17.4

And here's Guacamelee:

5

Why do you have to pay $15 for a 90-day rental when it costs $15 to buy the game on PS3?6

Other games cost similar prices, which seem to be based on when they came out.

There's a little note on the bottom of PlayStation Now that reads: "Game titles and features shown are for testing purposes only. Not indicative of the final price." But anyone who's in the beta right now has to pay these prices. I just tried to rent Deus Ex: Human Revolution and had to pay $4.99 for four hours of the privilege.

And it looks like prices like this could be here to stay. From the PS Now FAQ: "The upcoming Open Beta will test multiple pricing tiers and rental durations. You will see shorter rental periods prices as low as $2.99 and most titles are between that and $19.99. More information to be announced later."

Granted, Sony has promised that they'll be offering some sort of subscription program when the service actually launches, but at least for now, don't bother with the PS Now beta unless you've got a fat wallet.78

I want my $4.99 back.

http://kotaku.com/playstation-now-prices-are-currently-insane-1594025919

#SDCBABY

What was the deal with SolidTy making such a huge effort to say otherwise whereas both numerous media outlets and other SW users also confirmed the pricing you mentioned in the OP?

I believe these prices are just a placeholder and most likely will change once the service goes live.

there is another similar thread in the first page where one poster posted this link which states prices are going to be between $3 to $19 max : http://www.gamepur.com/news/15161-official-playstation-now-pricing-details-revealed-ranges-299-1999-subscript.html

Also Sony is asking people for feedback regarding the prices, they want your feedback on the prices: http://www.examiner.com/article/playstation-now-beta-game-rentals-prices-are-polarizing-sony-wants-feedback

Yeah I pretty much ended my Beta participation now that it costs an excessive amount of money to play old crappy games. The free selection wasn't that great in the first place, but paying for the replacement crop of forgettable dinosaurs is just insane.

Paying $5 to rent a game for 4 hours that I can pick up at Gamestop for $10 doesn't make a lot of financial sense. $1 for a one day rental...yes....$5 for a 4 hour rental of a 5 year old game...no thank you.

They are working on it.

It is mind trick to make $3-19$ seems cheap pretty genious Sony. ...or just insane Sony as always.

Placeholder or not, it shows the intentions. Service looks to be bullshit. Put psx and ps2 BC on ps4, and use psNOW for ps3 with a flat rate monthly price.

Hahaha that's actually quite hilarious. $5 for 4h of Deus Ex is a terrible deal for sure. Guacamelee is on Steams sale for €5.19 (will likely go for lower in a flash sale). I suppose this service is for people with hangovers and poor judgement :P

To be fair, there's likely the chance that the beta is priced as such in order to reveal real feedback. There's undoubtedly going to be some type of "reward" for going through the process along with a survey.

Cows are really insane.

What? Thats fvckin stupid. Sony is getting worse and worse... It seems PS4 success is getting to their heads. I guess they didnt learn a thing with the PS3

The milkage continues.

Earn your name Sony Fan.

It's things like this that will make me abandon console gaming and strictly buy PC titles. Anyone that buys into this sham is a fool.

They will change it...... we can only hope.

They don't call them cows for nothing. Farmer Sony loves milking them.

lmao whining about beta prices.

Who the **** rents a game for four hours or 90 days anyway?

Is PSN now mandatory.?

No.?

Ok then...carry on...

Worse than MS it could not be at least games cost money you can't get quacamele free,you people had been paying for Netflix and justifying it which has been free every freaking where so was online play for the las 11 years which still is free on PC,PS Vita,PS3,DS,wii,wii u,cell phones and you still defend that crap.

What you don't like don't support it,like i say if my PSN+ subscription runs out and sony has nothing good i would drop it,paying for online is a scam no matter who does it,and this service look just as bad.

How good it was those $60 for netflix on xbox 360..lol

MOoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo....

I read that someone wrote that ps now prices are high because when you get the game you can play it on bravia tv's, ps3, vita or ps4. But even then the pricing is still ridiculous, so we can only do 2 things:

1. give the feedback and hope they change it

2. if not then vote with your wallet

I was never interested on this shit anyway. I thought PS Now was gonna provide BC but this is not the case.

Sorry, can you write that in English? I dont speak moron.

What the **** is this

@MonsieurX: Ummm.... the 4 hour one is stupid, that should be 48 hours imo. like movies.

But this pricing... for the 7 days and up... is better than any renting service that the UK use to have... I rememebr 15 years ago with blockbuster renting snes/n64/ps1 games.... you'd pay that much for 2 days (the 7 day price)... and you'd have to wait for stock.

That being said... I was hoping for a subscription option... e.g I use boomerang rentals sometimes for console games... £17 a month... 2 games at once ect.... but a steaming version around the same price would of been fantastic... so like netflix.

the article... also doesn't factor in that while you can buy the game on PS3 for the same price..... PS NOW is not PS3 dependant... whereas... the physical copy is. you can play the game anywhere on any PS NOW device.... and a service that costs to run.

I don't have a PS3.... so that option is non existant anyway.

Says the guy who bought an Xbox one when it was so pivotal to the system they could easily take it out a year later. :P

Gotta check yourself before you wreck yoself son :D

Though I agree the prices are bat shit crazy

Guacamelee

Come on is me i eat an E and used a lower case letter still understandable...hahaha

Hahahaha...

That denial...hahahaha

If you're in the beta, you have every fucking right to whine. That's ridiculous

wow, you actually have to pay to beta test this shit, no cow doing this gets to ever complain about XBLG prices again, which amount to like $4-5/month

I think that a $15 monthly fee would be ok to download any game that I want. I would prefer that. Now there is something that has not been mentioned. That is that Sony has to go through an ISP. If that is the case they have to pay for bandwidth. That can and will get pricey if the service becomes popular. Food for thought.

Reading some of the responses, my lord. If Nintendo or valve or MS made a beta with these prices it would be the worst disaster in global history. But the band aiding and excuse making for Sony is off the charts with some. We know its a beta, we know they want feedback, but where is their logic? $5 for 4 hours? They need feedback to know the prices make no sense? Are you sony apologists kidding?

Not anymore. This is happening NOW. You stay in the past if you want though bro

do you rent games individually? I thought it was a sub base where it's a membership to play all games on the thing

$5 for 4 hours LAWLS couldn't they really just make it 5 hours? even then you can go red box for $2 for 24 hours

$30 for 90 days isn't bad if it's for every game but for one game? hell na unless it's a brand new game than it wouldn't be too bad.

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paying for a beta that cute! Really they better pull a blizzard and return all that money at the end and just using this to test prices and seeing what people is willing to pay

I've never wanted to see something in the video game industry fail as much as I want to see PlayStation Now fail. If it succeeds, I think it will set a bad precedent.

@MonsieurX: I expect these prices to change really soon because ... they are ridiculous !

Well, yeah. That's why it's a fucking beta.

Microsoft and Sony need to seriously show the benefits through price of going digital.

Not getting physical media and paying the same MSRP price for a game 10-20 dollars cheaper from Amazon or some other outlet is an insult to all gamers.

Until then, they can keep this digital and shove it somewhere special.

Whoever runs pricing at Microsoft and Sony digital needs fired. Seriously!

There is Zero Value in going digital over physical, other than getting up and changing a disk.

You can't even trade the damn game in and they're charging full MSRP for a game! They are charging end users the Retail profit margins for digital games. It's theft no matter how they spin it.

No thanks. Crooks.

EDIT for more thoughts on the matter.

lol if those are the prices there's no chance I'll be using PS Now

The pricing is stupid, even for a beta is stupid. When you consider this is coming up against the likes of Lovefilm which allow you to rent entire games for about £5 a month for unlimited rentals.

You still can't play free to play games online free on xbox one,on PS4,PC and cell phones you can..

So yeah while some things have changes do to MS fallowing the leader,some things still need change.

How is something free to play when you need to pay for online to play it.? Skyrim double dip.?

That is basically an ultra scam,not even the most sony biased moron would byte that sh**.

"Why do you have to pay $15 for a 90-day rental for guacamelee when it costs $15 to buy the game on PS3?".

i lol'ed at this..buy yeah, the prices are stupid.

@tormentos:

Fair enough. But the touche is what feedback does Sony logically need to know if I can buy a game for $19.99, I wont rent it for $19.99? And $5 for 4 hours? I never said MS was free of blame in spots but the excuses being made for Sony on this pricing in a fvckin Beta are absurd.

Sony did confirm the prices as being the the current planned prices. So they aren't a placeholder, but they may be adjusted if enough people complain.

if this is legit, that pricing is complete and utter bullshit. fix this now sony!

so sad

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There goes the holy station

link?

Because all the articles I have read from only 1 maybe 3 days at most says that this pricing is not final and that they want feedback.

This is hilarous, especially after solidty wrote about 10 essays on how there were no prices.

I haven't rented anything since they started charging. Fortunately I can still play the other rentals I had until they expire.

thank you TC bark louder you can make this happen! sony listens

lol cows

if only they could use old crazy eddie

Should just be a subscription service. Paying for individual games is stupid.