One of Sony’s biggest selling points with the PS4 is the Remote Play functionality available with every title. If you own a PlayStation Vita, PS4 games can be played remotely over ad-hoc WiFi connections, local wireless networks, or even the internet. I’ve had surprisingly solid results with the first two options, so I decided it was time to test Remote Play over the internet. While there were a few speed bumps along the way, the process ended up being incredibly straight-forward.
At my office, I connected my PS4directly to my modem with an ethernet cable. I have a 75Mbps/35Mbps fiberoptic connection from Verizon, so I’m something of a best-case scenario here. I took my Vita to a McDonald’s a few miles away, and I tested Remote Play over WiFi and Verizon LTE. While the LTE connection remained rock solid, I was somewhat disappointed with the real-world limitations of public WiFi at fast food chains.
As you can see above, the McDonald’s WiFi connection had a 165ms ping, averaged 1.24Mbps down, and averaged 0.39Mbps up. It successfully found my PS4 over the internet, but Remote Play was unable to function in that network environment. I switched on my hotspot on my Verizon iPhone 5, and ended up getting full bars. This connection had a 48ms ping, averaged 32Mbps down, and averaged 6.07Mbps up. Connecting over my iPhone was incredibly fast, and offered shockingly playable results after automatically connecting to my PS4 over the internet.
That said, the lag introduced by the streaming technology is definitely noticable. If you’re going to play a competitive action game like this, you’ll definitely find yourself at a disadvantage. Single-player experiences like Contrast or Flower will work just fine if your internet connection can handle it, but don’t push your luck with games like Call of Duty orBattlefield.
