It’s in beta in the US, and will hit the UK in 2015, but Australian users have no firm date for Sony’s game streaming service.
Speaking at a general launch in Sydney today, Sony’s Michael Ephraim stated that while the service would be made available in the UK (usually a good sign for Australia, sharing lots of PAL legacy and marketing) there was no firm date for the launch of Playstation Now in Australia.
Specifically, he stated that “introducing a streaming service of this magniturd is complex, but we’re exploring all avenues, so watch this space”
Obviously there are back-end server issues to deal with, but that’s also going to be more complex given the incredibly variable state of Australian home broadband connections. Lag in an online game is bad enough — imagine how much worse it could be when you’re streaming the entire game.
In any case, there’s a solid audience of Playstation 4 gamers out there for Sony to sell streaming games to, with Ephraim stating that the PS4 is, according to NPD data, the fastest selling games console in Australian history.