The PlayStation Plus app on PC is going away. Don’t have any clue what that was? You’re not alone. Sony’s announcement that it was killing off the cloud-streaming feature was met with a mix of surprise and confusion. “Brother, nobody knew the PS PC App existed…” one player wrote in the PlayStation Blog comments section.
The PlayStation Plus app on PC has technically been around for a while and is essentially a legacy holdover from the PS Now streaming days that allowed PS Plus subscribers to stream PS3 and PS4 games to a computer. When PS Now was rolled into PS Plus, the feature became locked behind the most expensive tier, PS Plus Premium, and few players have bothered with it in the years since.
According to Sony’s announcement about the app closing, only 0.4 percent of PS Plus Premium subscribers used the PS Plus PC app. “As a result, the PlayStation Plus cloud streaming app on PC will no longer be available,” the company wrote. “This change does not affect PlayStation Plus memberships or benefits available on PS5 and PS4 consoles. We appreciate everyone who used the app on PC and will be notifying affected users directly.”
Lots of PS3 games in particular were never ported to PC or modern consoles. I don’t know who exactly was in the market to pay $160 a year to stream Resistance: Fall of Man to their PC, but that option will no longer be available to anyone starting December 10. “I have used the PS Plus app on PC,” another player wrote on the PlayStation Blog. “The primary reason that it did not become a regular thing for me, though, is the requirement for a wired controller. Add in that it was generally janky, and there’s the problem. It isn’t a matter of demand. It has low usage due to functionality, not demand. And there is absolutely demand for PS Plus streaming on Android devices.”
It’s certainly not hard to imagine Sony figuring out a way to boost engagement with game streaming on PC, but it’s been slowly retreating from the platform in recent years. Major first-party games like Ghost of Yotei and Marvel’s Wolverine aren’t slated to get PC ports, and even accessories like the Pulse Elevate wireless speakers have been indefinitely delayed. While that is reportedly down to a manufacturing issue, it doesn’t seem like Sony is eager to get the problem rectified.