You can now stream your PlayStation 4 games to a PC over the internet, but you might want to manage your expectations about playing The Last of Us on your laptop.
Included in the most recent 3.50 firmware update for PS4, being able to stream your games to a remote PC is a feature to which Microsoft beat Sony to the punch by quite a while. Here's how it works, or how it's supposed to: After a simple one-time setup in which you connect your PS4 to the PC on the same network, after that you can use any network to play your PS4 via that PC.
So just bring your laptop to your New York hotel room while your PS4 is at home in LA, and you can turn the PS4 on remotely, plug a PS4 controller into your computer's USB port, and fire up a game of Bloodborne.
This works, more or less. It's serviceable, but not excellent. If you want to play simple, slow-paced games like RPGs, you might love this. If you need to play something fast, with fidelity and responsiveness, it might not suffice. I have a fairly strong internet connection (I get roughly 300 Mbps download speed) and while the basic functions worked well, actual gameplay varied wildly.
Bloodborne was a mess: It stuttered repeatedly, the audio cut in and out, and the image had a strange fogginess on my monitor. It would work beautifully for 20-second increments, but not consistently enough.
Slower games, like the two-dimensional twin-stick shooter Helldivers looked and played relatively well, keeping a steady frame rate and stable image quality. There was still a noticeable delay, a split-second sluggishness to the gameplay as a result of the streaming, but it ran without significant stuttering, which was an improvement over its more fast-paced gaming brethren.
My best results were with Manhunt, the PlayStation 2 game that runs via emulation on PS4. It's not a game that demands very much in the way of the console's resources, and that seems to work in its favor. It worked almost flawlessly, a slight delay notwithstanding.
There aren't many options to fiddle with. You can adjust the video quality up to 720p, and the frame rate up to 60, and you can choose a windowed or a full-screen display.
Like a lot of game streaming technology, this is a good idea that isn't technologically there yet. If you want to play something turn-based or lo-fi, or want to log in quickly to buy something from a Destiny vendor, you may find this convenient. But if you really want to replicate your PS4 experience while away from home, you might need to keep packing the PS4 in your carry-on.
