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Michael Pachter: PlayStation Now Is 'A Joke'

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There's been lots of speculation over Sony's upcoming PlayStation Now service, which offers cloud-based PlayStation games to a number of non-console devices, including Sony's TVs and smartphones.

Will the service be hampered by poor internet speeds? Will it fundamentally change the way we think about video games? Could this be the Netflix (or Amazon Prime) of gaming in the future?

According to Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter, the entire service has "no prayer of working."

"PlayStation Now is a joke," he said in the latest issue of Game Informer (via.) "There is no publisher that is going to license content that's less than two-years old because they would be concerned that they can't sell as many copies if they make it available for subscription or rental.

"This has no prayer of working. None."

Sony hasn't revealed its third-party partners yet, but Pachter may be on to something. A video game subscription and rental service could, theoretically, disrupt more lucrative sales of new games. On the other hand, I suspect there's actually a pretty sizable demand for older titles and plenty of consumers who would jump at the opportunity to have a large back catalog of PlayStation games at their finger-tips, without needing to own older consoles to play them.

Would PlayStation Now be viable if newer releases were locked out of the mix? That's hard to say, and a great deal depends on the quality of the service to begin with.

It's also worth noting that PlayStation Plus---Sony's subscription upgrade to its PlayStation Network---offers free games each month.

While these are rarely brand new releases, they're often games that came out within that same year. For instance, BioShock Infinite was released for free to PS Plus members this January, not even a full year after it was released in March of 2013. I'd guess Pachter's "two years" estimate is an exaggeration, especially since the first few weeks are the most crucial time for video game sales for most titles.

Also, since PS Now will be offering games from past systems rather than PS4 titles, the entire point of the service is to offer older games rather than the latest and greatest. I'm not sure that qualifies it as "a joke."

However, streaming may not take off quickly for other reasons. There's no doubt that a great deal of Now's success will rely on internet infrastructure, something that's hobbled other attempts at making cloud-based gaming a reality.

The downfall of OnLive---one of the spearheads of the cloud-gaming movement---is testament enough to the struggles facing this type of service.

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