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Google may have killed off its Stadia game streaming service, but if you have one of Google’s Chromecast with Google TV (4K) media streamers, you can still use it to stream games from the cloud using NVIDIA’s GeForce Now, Netflix game streaming (beta), and a handful of less well-known services.
Now Sony has announced one more option: PS Remote Play is now available on some devices running Android TV or Google TV, including the Chromecast with Google TV (4K). It’s one of a bunch of new PlayStation features the company announced today.
PS Remote Play isn’t quite the same as Stadia or GeForce Now, because it’s not a cloud gaming service that beams games from a remote server to your device. Instead it streams games you already own from a PlayStation 4 or PlayStation 5 to supported devices over the internet or a local network.
In other words, you need to own a PlayStation console, and it needs to be plugged in, powered on, and connected to a network for PS Remote Play to work.
But addition of support for Chromecast and other Android-powered media streamers (running Android TV 12 or later) means that you can now easily bring your games to any big screen in your home without moving your console. It also means you could theoretically take a Chromecast with you when you travel to play your games in a hotel room or at a friend or family member’s home.
Sony says that the only other Android TV device that’s been verified to work so far is the Sony BRAVIA XR A95L with Google TV, which is a $2800+ TV. The Chromecast with Google TV (4K), meanwhile, is a $50 dongle that turns just about any TV with an HDMI port into a smart TV, making it a slightly cheaper option. PS Remote Play also probably works with other Android/Google TV devices, Sony just hasn’t verified other products yet.
PS Remote Play already supports Android and iOS smartphones and tablets as well as PC and Mac computers and whatever the PlayStation Portal is supposed to be.
Update: The Verge reports that while PS Remote Play works on the Chromecast with Google TV 4K, it doesn’t necessarily work perfectly.
Your mileage may vary, but The Verge’s Sean Hollister tried things out with a PS5 connected to a local network with an Ethernet cable and found that audio and video was a little out of sync, there may be some graphics stuttering, and there’s a bit of input lag (meaning button presses won’t necessarily be registered on the screen instantly). This makes some games difficult to play.