Sony's 2015 Blu-Ray Players Get PlayStation Now Streaming

Pretty soon, you might not need to get your hands on a PS3 if you don't own one yet just to play its exclusive titles. Sony seems to be keen on adding support for its PlayStation Now game streaming services to devices outside of its own gaming hardware. Now the Japanese company is announcing that the 2015 model of its Blu-ray Disc Player is getting that feature as well, allowing owners to rent and stream their desired PlayStation 3 games right in their living room, without having to own a PS3.

The last to get this treatment was interestingly not a Sony product. Last December, Sony surprisingly revealed that Samsung's 2015 line of Smart TVs will also be getting that game streaming feature. Considering Sony has its own Smart TV business, the move was akin to it sharing a piece of its kingdom with a rival. Of course, for Samsung Smart TV would-be owners, that's a very welcome arrangement.

That said, game streaming isn't the end all and be all of gaming. At least not yet. While it does relieve you of having to worry about download times and disk space, you do have to worry constantly about Internet connections. And some gamers would also prefer to own a game out of principle rather than renting one, which is practically what PlayStation Now offers. At the moment, the collection boasts of about 300 PS3 games, not exactly all of them but still quite a lot.

With the addition of this service, the 2015 Blu-ray player becomes and even more well-rounded entertainment equipment. Aside from this new PlayStation Now feature, the box is also able to, of course, play Blu-ray discs, stream videos from popular services like Netflix, and even cast photos and videos from Android devices.

SOURCE: Sony