It's official. It's now possible for PlayStation 4 owners to stream their games onto their PCs. Unfortunately, the software that allows for this isn't backed by Sony.
The unofficial Remote Play app was created by the independent developer, Twisted. It allows PS4 owners to stream their gameplay to a PC, and it all started with Twisted's work to stream PS4 games to Android devices.
Before Sony ditched its own PlayStation Vita, the only other way to stream PS4 games to another device was either to another Sony branded television or one of Sony Xperia smartphones. Much to some gamers' dislike, Sony kept the Remote Play proprietary to Sony platforms and will probably do so for the foreseeable future.
That didn't stop Twisted anyway, working with Android devices led to finally finding a workaround to get Remote Play to work on any PC, too. If the Xbox One can already stream games to any Windows 10-based PC, it's still a wonder as to why Sony doesn't expand a similar functionality to the PlayStation 4.
In real-world gameplay, the app seems to stream games quite smoothly in a PC environment. Instead of simply porting over his Android emulator to the PC, Twisted built a native Windows app so that there seems to be no noticeable lag whatsoever with keyboard and mouse input.
Twisted's Remote Play tweak for PlayStation 4 to PC streaming may come in quite handy when the only available TV at home is being used by someone else, for example. The catch, however, is that unlike most of Twisted's other work, this unofficial Remote Play will not be free.
"The only way to support this is to charge for the app, all my previous projects have been free and I don't want to have to, but sadly it's the only way to support my living costs," Twisted explains.
The price Twisted is charging for his work is $10. But before dropping the dough on the unofficial app, PS4 and PC owners should know that it is, well, unofficial. Because Sony isn't supporting Twisted's work, especially as he's still using the company's name in his tweaked app and charging for it, Sony could very well soon put an end to it all.
Unless, of course, Sony finally decides to do what Twisted already has done and extend the original Remote Play app functionality to include PC streaming.
Photo: Farley Santos | Flickr
