It was reported on the morning of December 13 that in the lawsuit between Epic and Apple, many historical documents as evidence made it possible to understand some dusty history. For example, as early as 2017, Apple and Sony planned to launch the PlayStation Now cloud game service on mobile phones. An Apple document mentions an unannounced mobile extension of existing streaming services that provides PlayStation users with streaming access to more than 450 PS3 games, which may later be expanded to PS4 games.
But this plan never seemed to come true, and it didn’t come to an end. PS Now cloud games are still serving users, available in Europe, the United States, Canada and Japan. Users can play PS4, PS3, and PS2 games on PS5, PS4, or Windows computers, but this service has never been available for iOS or Android phones, nor has there been a version for Mac computers. Apple may have been evaluating PS Now, but they finally launched the Apple Arcade cloud gaming service in 2019.
There is no need for physical forms such as CDs, just download part of the data to play, and users need to pay monthly. This seems to be a good business model, which can avoid problems such as cracking piracy, and it can also bring a steady stream of income for manufacturers. Therefore, all companies are doing similar businesses. PS Now was launched in 2014, a few years before its competitors developed cloud gaming products. GeForce NOW followed closely in 2015 as a beta version. Google’s Google Stadia was not launched until 2019. Microsoft was slower and Xbox Cloud Gaming was not launched until 2020.
It is not clear why Sony never launched a mobile version of PS Now. The Verge speculated that Sony did not think it was worth competing with Apple at the time, or Sony might decide to focus on game console sales. There are rumors that Sony may launch an updated cloud gaming service in the future to compete with Xbox Game Pass, but it is not clear whether this new service will appear on mobile devices. If so, Sony may need to follow the path of Microsoft and Google and provide web-based solutions on the iPhone and iPad.