Sony has confirmed that you can play your digital games from friends and family’s houses. Combined with the “Play As You Download” feature you do not even have to wait for the games to download.

Play your PlayStation 4 games everywhere
Both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 still comes with a Blu-ray slot for games but the companies want to move activity online with cloud gaming and downloading.

At the Develop conference, Sony’s R&D senior team lead, Neil Brown, told the attendance that the PlayStation 4 will allow users to play their library of digital games from PlayStation 4 consoles everywhere. That is not unique but Sony will add an extra layer on top that will make it highly convenient. You can start playing as soon as you log in.


With PlayStation 4, Sony is doing what Microsoft cannot

- “You can visit your friend’s house you can log into your account and play any game from your digital library, which is good. But how useful is that if it takes half a day to download the game you want to play? With Play As You Download you get much quicker access to at least the first section of the game so you can start playing quicker. So this makes a digital library a practical option in the real world.” says Neil Brown.

It works by utilizing background downloading. The first part of the game will start downloading as soon as you log in so you can start playing. The next parts of the game will download in the background with “Play As You Download” without you noticing it.

The technology is even being used to optimize the installation process when you buy a new game on a Blu-ray disc. You can start playing shortly after you have inserted the disc for the first time and the game will finalize the installation in the background.

Microsoft had implemented a range of cloud game system in the new Xbox One but has later decided to disable some of them to remove restrictions on used games.

- Source: PlayStation Magazine