Of the more than 20,000 Twitter hits relating to Sony's PlayStation Now announcement at this year's Consumer Electronic Show, 66 percent came from news publications and industry sources covering the story. Of course, many companies are more concerned with what the average consumer thinks. Enter Fizziology, a research firm dedicated to analyzing social media stats.
For those unfamiliar, this is what Sony is calling the stream-based gaming service they promised prior to the PlayStation 4's launch. It'll eventually allow owners of just about any connected-device to play PSOne, PS2, and PS3 games, though it'll start with PS4, Vita, and owners of Sony Bravia televisions. Sifting through the Twitterverse, social media research firm Fizziology broke down the remaining 34 percent of "organic opinions" (those coming from people who are not in the industry) and found that a whopping 96 percent of the conversation surrounding PlayStation Now were "positive"; only 4 percent was negative.
Breaking the conversation down even further, Fizziology found that 23 percent of organic mentions came from gamers "expressing excitement for or interest in PlayStation Now." About one-third of this excitement came from people willing to pay for the service, while another third was driven by specific games of their interest. Sony has yet to actually provide pricing details for PS Now, though we do know it'll be rental-based. Users can choose to rent games on an individual basis, or choose to pay a monthly fee for presumably unlimited access to the catalog of games.
As for the negative four percent, Fizziology found that it came from people skeptical about the titles available. Again, Sony hasn't gotten into specifics but the service will first offer PS3 games. The goal, however, is to eventually offer older content from the PSOne and PS2 era. Beyond: Two Souls, God of War: Ascension, The Last of Us, and Puppeteer were the only games available to play at CES.
Others reacting negatively to PS Now were those concerned about the connection speed required for such a service. Although PlayStation Now tests your connection speed for each game and optimizes the quality accordingly, Sony recommends a 5MBPS+ connection. So the concern is certainly valid.
Overall, it's clear that the majority of gamers are excited for the new service to rollout. PlayStation Now is expected to enter a Beta phase later this month in North America. A full rollout is planned for this summer.
*Note: This story has been updated following some clarification regarding the CES numbers. CES actually had WAY more than 20,000 mentions, according to Fizziology; it was PlayStation Now that had more than 20,000 specific mentions. The opening paragraph now clarifies that.
