Now you can rent games on PS3 with PlayStation Now’s expanded open beta

By Will Fulton September 18, 2014

playstation now open beta arrives ps3

PlayStation Now, Sony’s game streaming service that has been available on PlayStation 4 and select Bravia televisions since July 2014, is now up and running on PlayStation 3 as well. The library of over 150 titles and growing has now been integrated into the PlayStation Store.

The service offers a range of rental periods, depending on the title, but generally you can rent a game for a week at roughly $1 per day. The latest titles to be added to the ever-expanding roster are God of War: Ascension, inFamous, and Ultra Street Fighter IV.

PlayStation Now sprang from Sony’s purchase of the game-streaming startup Gaikai in 2012. Following suit with movie and TV streaming services like Netflix and Hulu, PlayStation Now offers cloud-based gaming that will eventually be enabled across the entire ecosystem of PlayStation gaming devices and select Sony televisions, taking advantage of increased bandwidth to negate the need for locally-hosted games and let you play games and save progress wherever you are.

A steady, wired broadband connection of at least 5Mbps is strongly recommended for optimal performance.

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Will Fulton is a New York-based writer and theater-maker. In 2011 he co-founded mythic theater company AntiMatter Collective…

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PlayStation VR2’s best launch game isn’t the one you we’re expecting

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With the PlayStation VR2 out now, all eyes are on Horizon Call of the Mountain. The action-adventure title is Sony’s first big exclusive for the platform, acting as its tentpole launch title. While it’s a must-buy for anyone picking up the device on day one, it's more successful as a strong technical showcase for the headset rather than as a fun game that stands on its own. If you’re looking for the latter, you’ll want to check out PSVR2’s real hidden weapon: Fantavision 202X.

『FANTAVISION 202X』 - ゲームプレイトレーラー

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How to find PlayStation VR2 games on the PS5’s PlayStation Store

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PlayStation VR2 is out now, and many of us are trying out the headset for the first time. If you didn't buy the Horizon Call of the Mountain bundle, you'll need to buy some games for the headset on the PS5's PlayStation Store. Right now, we have the benefit of the headset and its biggest launch titles being prominently featured on the PlayStation Store on PS5. That won't always be the case, though.
PSVR2 is not backward compatible with games for its predecessor, and just searching "VR" on the PlayStation Store will bring up many games that are only compatible with the original PlayStation VR headset. As such, searching for PSVR2 games manually on the PlayStation Store is more complicated than it might seem. To ensure you don't accidentally buy a game you can't play in your new headset, this is how you can find and identify PSVR2 games on the PS5's PlayStation Store.
How to manually find PlayStation VR2 games on the PlayStation Store

Currently, the "Latest" tab of the PlayStation Store does have featured widgets for specific games and an entire row dedicated to PSVR2 games, with a "View All" option at the end, which will bring you a list of the headset's games and demos. That's currently the easiest way to find PSVR2 games, but it likely won't stay there as we get further out from the PSVR2's launch. To manually search for PSVR2 games, you'll need to head over to the Browse section of the PlayStation Store. By default, "All Games" for PS4, PSVR, PS5, and PSVR2 will be shown, sorted by bestselling. To filter out non-PSVR2 games, choose the "Filter" button featuring three lines and a downward-pointing arrow on the screen's left side.
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Get these 6 PlayStation VR2 launch games to showcase its features

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If you're planning on buying a PlayStation VR2 at launch, be prepared for an intimidating process as you decide which games to pick up first. Early adopters will have a lot of options to choose from, as Sony's latest headset will support over 40 games at launch. The bulk of those, though, are ports of preexisting VR games from the past few years. That makes it a little tricky to figure out which games actually showcase what the PSVR2 is capable of and which will feel like a dated experience that doesn't benefit from new tech.

To help guide you, we've spent time playing through a wide variety of launch titles, from classics like Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy's Edge all the way to Horizon Call of the Mountain. While there are plenty of games that we've enjoyed, including charmers like What the Bat? and Jurassic World Aftermath Collection, six games in particular act as great showcases for various PSVR2 features. Whether you're looking to test its power, Sense controllers, or audio options, you'll want to put these six games in your digital shopping cart.
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