Sony says it has begun testing the ability to stream PS5 games from the cloud. The PlayStation maker says it’s testing cloud streaming of PS5 games and plans to add this as a feature to its PlayStation Plus Premium subscription.
We are currently testing cloud streaming of supported PS5 games – this includes PS5 titles from the PlayStation Plus game catalog and Game Trials, as well as supported digital PS5 titles that players own. says Nick Maguire, Vice President of Worldwide Services, Worldwide Sales and Business Operations, Sony Interactive Entertainment. “When this feature launches, cloud game streaming for supported PS5 titles will be available to use directly on your PS5 console.”
PS5’s game cloud feature means you’ll no longer have to download games to your console to stream them to other devices. Sony currently supports streaming PS5 games to PC, Mac, iOS, and Android, but you need to use the PS5 as a host to download and stream titles to your other devices.
It’s been apparent for months that Sony has been working on cloud streaming of PS5 games. Recent job listings have hinted at a new push for cloud gaming, and then PlayStation boss Jim Ryan laid out “very aggressive plans” for cloud gaming last month. But Sony kept revealing its PlayStation handheld, codenamed Project Q, by only emphasizing Wi-Fi streaming of PS5 games directly from the console.
While Sony has not clarified whether its PlayStation Portable will support PS5 cloud game streaming, this PlayStation Plus Premium cloud payment is clearly a step towards it even if there is no launch date yet. Sony CEO Kenichiro Yoshida hinted earlier this month that the company is still in the early stages of cloud gaming, so maybe the Project Q launch (in November?) will continue without that major support.
“We think it’s important for Premium members to be able to enjoy as many games as possible via cloud streaming,” says Maguire. “We’re in the early stages now, and we can’t wait to share more details when we’re ready, including a launch timeframe.”
Sony’s confirmation of PS5 cloud streaming comes more than four years after it unveiled a surprise partnership with Microsoft that will see the companies team up to develop future cloud solutions for games and content streaming services. We haven’t heard much about this deal since 2019. In 2021, PlayStation boss Jim Ryan said Sony was Still in the “sharing ideas” stage., despite an original promise by gaming competitors to explore using Microsoft Azure datacenter-based solutions for games and Sony’s content streaming services. Given Sony’s recent mention of AWS in its job listings, Microsoft’s strategic partnership is likely to come to an end.
Updated at 12:15 p.m. ET: Article updated with details of Microsoft’s cloud partnership with Sony as of 2019.
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