Survey Reveals The Surprising Number Of People That Use PlayStation Now

Game streaming services, which are a somewhat recent alternative to traditional consoles, allow subscribers to play games hosted on distant servers over the internet. In short, games played through such services are not run on a player's own system but on remote hardware, and then streamed to a home device.

Will these services change how games are played and owned forever? Nobody's quite sure yet. Being a recent addition to the gaming landscape, most if not all streaming service companies are still in the process of assessing what consumers want and adapting accordingly.

In order to get a feel for just which streaming services players are trying out, despite the newness of the technology, SVG conducted a survey of 1,200 people asking which among a list of current streaming platforms they're using.

Though answers were spread out across the range of options, the runaway leader was Sony's PlayStation Now, encompassing 56% of responses.

PlayStation Now is notably older than some of its competitors, having launched in 2014, just shortly after the PS4. The service was reworked, however, as recently as 2019, at which point its subscription costs were lowered, and some recent AAA titles were added on a limited, rotating basis.

That said, one additional advantage of PS Plus (and a likely contributor to its dominant poll presence) is that it's not merely a streaming service — it can also function as a more straightforward subscription service. In fact, games that can be downloaded through PS Now are reportedly played twice as much as titles that can only be streamed.

Its direct competitor in Xbox Cloud Gaming (also known as xCloud, which was its codename) ultimately received a formidable 31% of user votes. Unlike PS Now, the service remains entirely separate from Xbox's subscription platform.

Though vague, Sony CEO Jim Ryan has promised upcoming changes to PS Now, likely in order to draw in new PS5 owners. Xbox Cloud Gaming, meanwhile, may soon be accessible through smart TV devices. These changes could very well shake up the PlayStation and Xbox rivalry anew.

Though their user bases pale in comparison to those of PlayStation's and Xbox's services, three additional subscription platforms nevertheless garnered a chunk of overall poll votes.

First among these is Nvidia GeForce Now, which encompassed 7% of responses. Nvidia's streaming service is notable for its price – it functions similarly to its competition, but undercut one competitor in particular with its subscription fee.

That competitor is Google Stadia, which, despite the marquee Google branding, only received 3% of the vote. Though its poll presence was meager, Stadia recently added the ability for families to share games among one another and iOS compatibility, both of which could theoretically bolster its userbase.

Finally, Amazon Luna received 2% of user votes, as well as some feedback in the poll's comments section from those previously unaware Amazon offered its own proprietary game streaming service.

Nintendo is currently taking brand new steps into streaming, as well. It's unclear whether Nintendo is set to join the next wave of gaming technology or is already late to a trend on its way out. That will ultimately be determined by how each of these companies adapt in this important early period of development.