A few months after teasing the feature on Twitter, Sony is adding remote play on Windows and OS X with the new PS4 3.50 update available tomorrow.
This isn’t uncharted territory for Sony as you can already stream your games to your PlayStation Vita and some Sony phones. You can also buy a PlayStation TV to stream your PS4 games to another TV.
But this is still a useful feature if your kids are watching cartoons on the TV and you really want to play Destiny on your desktop computer.
You’ll be able to use your standard DualShock 4 controller with a USB cable and download an app for your computer. And of course, the feature will work better if your PS4 and computer are both connected to your local network using Ethernet cables.
Unfortunately, Sony doesn’t expect great performance from the remote play feature. With a default definition of 540p and 30 images per second, it’s much lower than the best definition you can get on the PS4 with well-optimized games (1080p and 60 frames per second). If you have a good setup, you’ll be able to play games on your computers at 720p and 60 images per second.
If you have an Xbox One, Microsoft enabled remote play for your PC last year. But you need to run Windows 10, unfortunately for Mac users.
Today’s news might also mean that better drivers for the PS4 controllers are coming to the PC. The PS4 controller features a touchpad in the middle, so you’ll be able to use this touchpad on a PC or Mac, at least for your PS4 games.