Outside of the few games that Sony has ported to Windows, the PlayStation Plus app on PC was the best way to play PS5 games on PC, even if you had to stream them. But now, Sony will be retiring the PlayStation Plus PC app.
In a blog post today, Sony announced that the PlayStation Plus app is going away on December 10 in order to focus on console users. Sony justified the decision by saying, “With a very small number of eligible PlayStation Plus Premium members (less than 0.4%) using the PlayStation Plus app on PC, making this change allows us to focus on enhancing high-quality experiences that more of our members want to use. As a result, the PlayStation Plus cloud streaming app on PC will no longer be available.”
This comes just a few months after Sony backed out of releasing PC ports of PlayStation exclusives, instead opting to keep its single-player games exclusive to its own consoles. Even the reasoning is similar, with Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Herman Hulst telling employees that Sony’s PC ports were ‘inconsistent’ and didn’t make enough money.
The Best PS5 Games
However, with the PlayStation Plus app on PC going away, it’s going to be a bit harder to stream games when you’re away from your console, something you can easily do from your phone or PC with an Xbox Game Pass subscription – unless it’s GTA 6, of course. With this change, the only streaming option for PS5 outside of a console is Remote Play, and that requires a console to be on the same network.
It’s also worth mentioning that consoles are only getting more expensive, and the PS5 Pro will still set you back $1,559 at the time of writing on Amazon. As hardware gets more expensive, cloud streaming is going to be increasingly more important, and it seems like Sony is backing away from it – if even just a little bit.
Sony has avoided putting the same limitations on cloud gaming that other companies have, though. Just this month, Microsoft implemented a time limit on Xbox Cloud Streaming, limiting Game Pass Ultimate subscribers to just 15 hours of play time before they need to break out their wallets to buy extra time. Nvidia’s GeForce Now also has time limits, but they’re a bit more liberal, allowing 100 hours of playtime each month.
Jackie Thomas is the Senior Tech Editor at IGN and the PC components queen. She’s been covering gaming hardware for more than a decade for IGN, TechRadar, Gizmodo, PC Gamer and more. You can follow her @Jackiecobra
