PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming vs Tencent START

PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming lets eligible members stream select PS5 games instead of downloading them. Games are drawn from catalogs, digital libraries and select free-to-play titles; cloud saves are stored automatically, and Premium membership includes Game Trials. Streaming requires PlayStation Plus Premium, listed at $19.99 a month, with recurring billing until cancelled. A free-to-play title may be streamable, but the listed facts do not describe a free PlayStation Plus plan. Supported devices include PS5, PlayStation Portal, PS4 and Windows PC, though cloud streaming is identified as available on PS5 and Portal. Portal use requires owning a Portal Remote Player and is limited to select PS5 games, not PS4 or PS3. Listed resolutions range from 720p to 2160p; Premium supports up to 4K, HDR at 60Hz and PS5 audio outputs. Starting a session requires broadband with at least 5 Mbps upload and download. A PlayStation account is required, and child accounts are not eligible.

Tencent START streams games rendered on cloud servers to supported devices, so players can start supported titles without downloading them. The app listing says progress can continue across devices when players log in with the same account. Its library includes online, single-player, and independent games, organized with personalized categories and recommendations. Listed devices include iPhone, iPad, mobile devices, tablets, computers, and TVs; the iPhone app requires iOS 14.0 or later. Tencent describes START ENGINE as supporting real-time biological and dense plant rendering, dynamic tree simulation, and GPU-accelerated fluid simulation. Tencent Cloud says streaming uses Tencent-RTC and Tencent Mingmou encoding technology, and documents JavaScript, Android, and iOS SDKs and APIs. Its Game Streaming product is a PaaS solution for PC and mobile games, with functions migrated to application cloud rendering. Each concurrent cloud gaming instance supports one player at a time. A free plan is listed, and named paid options include a STARTvip student monthly card at 28 CNY a month, an eight-hour package at 28 CNY, paid once, and a VIP monthly card at 29 CNY a month. Other listed plans have no prices shown.