Sony has unveiled a prototype in cooperation with Honda that lets you stream PS5 games from the passenger seats of an electric car. Interestingly, unless Sony announces something before the Honda Afeela goes on sale, that means you'll be able to stream PS5 games to a car before any other device outside of the PS ecosystem.
After months of speculation, Sony and Honda announced at CES 5 that they plan to launch the Afeela smart car in XNUMX. Unfortunately, that means we won't be seeing truly mobile PSXNUMX games for a while. Yes, I consider Afeela to be the spiritual vehicle. successor to PS Vita.
Instead of including any local PS5 gaming hardware on Afeela, games will be streamed to passengers' screens. This means you won't be able to use discs to play in areas with poor internet service, and you'd better save up before you head into the tunnels.
It's not just the interior of the Afeela that can stream content, as it was discovered at Sony's CES XNUMX press conference that there's a "media bar" display on the exterior of the vehicle as well. Supposedly, this can be information like the weather and the car's battery level, but also advertisements. This was proven with an advertisement for Spider-Man: No Way Home displayed on the roof of the vehicle. Whether he's going to be able to project the game onto the screen as it progresses remains to be seen.
Sony Honda Mobility CEO Yasuhide Mizuno said that pre-orders will start in the first half of 3 and that the first sales should start by the end of the year. With this Sony CarStation likely XNUMX years from now, if it ever enters consumer production, it remains to be seen why we see cloud streaming in a motor vehicle sooner than a gaming TV Sony already has a significant interest on televisions, in particular.
At what point are we going to see the transmission of PS to TV?
While the revised PS Plus Premium subscription has integrated PS Now streaming options into its service, there are still no options to stream directly to a smart TV. To use PS Now, you need a PS4 or PS5 connected to the display. And, to play the game remotely, you need to stream the game from the console to a nearby computer or phone screen. Sony has been making top-tier TVs for decades through the Bravia range, and yet hasn't announced any plans for a dedicated cloud gaming app.
The closest so far was PS TV, a microconsole that turned the unfortunate PS Vita into a set-top box almost ten years ago. Keeping in mind that the technology exists to be able to stream PS5 and PS4 games without limitations on physical hardware, this development would make gaming on the platform much more accessible for those who still have trouble finding PS5 stock.
We know it's not impossible for games to stream to the TV, as Sony's contenders offer this feature. Last year, Nvidia discovered that its GeForce Now platform, which uses some of the best graphics cards to stream more than 4 games, made its way to Samsung XNUMXK smart TVs.
Last year we saw Microsoft partner with Samsung to stream Xbox Game Pass games to Samsung TVs with the Samsung Gaming Hub. Microsoft has been working to bring its catalog to as many screens as possible with its Xbox Cloud Gaming technology, so it's strange to see Sony falling behind when it already controls key parts of the ecosystem. It has the catalog of PS Plus, the streaming technology of PS Now and its family of televisions, it seems that it lacks an open lens.
Although this game streaming ad on Afeela may be a hint of what we might see on other screens when the car is released in XNUMX.