PlayStation Now Loading Times Get A Significant Boost

Sony’s announced streaming service for legacy PlayStation games, PlayStation Now, is slated to launch some time later this year in North America on PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation Vita, and it went into beta earlier this year, where users reported that they were running into ridiculous loading times, adding to the perception that latency makes streaming games an unviable proposition.

Now, DualShockers is reporting that the second phase of the beta has seen a substantial improvement in loading times for video games, which might make playing games on the service more palatable to the average user than it would have been before.

The list of loading times is:

• Shadow of the Colossus – 46.72 (old time: 53.98)
• WipeOut HD – 57.19
• Dead Nation – 40.05
• PixelJunk Monsters – 39.90
• Shatter – 38.86 (old time: 39.77)
• Guacamelee! – 32.36
• Disgaea 4 – 33.30 (old time: 47.12)
• Dead or Alive 5 – 36.55 (old time: 51.10)
• Critter Crunch – 38.37
• Matt Hazard: Blood Bath and Beyond – 35.81
• Zeno Clash II – 35.62
• Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon – 32.28
• Puzzle Quest: Galactrix – 36.45
• Rise of the Guardians – 35.12
• Dead Island – 36.22
• PAYDAY: The Heist – 37.03
• Order Up!! – 35.66
• Alien Rage – 39.27
• Real Steel – 35.82

Obviously, most of those loading times are still obscenely high, but they do represent a step up from where they were before, which should be a cause for optimism among players; however, with that said, it is also important to remember that the beta itself represents only a minuscule strain on Sony’s servers compared to how it will be when it finally goes live for the general public- so you can easily expect loading times to be worse in the final product.