I found an easy way to play PS5 games on my Apple TV ‣ Diverse Daily

With home consoles only getting more expensive, there’s never been a better time to get more mileage out of the ones you do own. Remote Play allows you to stream PS4 and PS5 games to other devices via a dedicated app, and it’s a perfect example of the extra use you can squeeze out of something you already own. Paired with a smartphone, tablet, or a PS Portal, it’s a pretty convenient way to make console games mobile if you have fast enough internet. The only problem with Remote Play is that Sony hasn’t made official apps for plenty of platforms where it might make sense to stream games.

That’s where a growing number of third-party apps come in. With a bit of set up, you can stream games from your PS5 to an Apple TV or even an Apple Vision Pro using Asobi. Better yet, the app is also able to stream modern PS5 games and older PS3 titles directly from PlayStation’s cloud library when you’d prefer to play something you don’t have installed locally on your console. The Apple TV is already a bit of a game console if you’re willing to settle with what’s available on Apple Arcade, but PS5 games take it to another level.

Asobi adds on to the official PS Remote Play app

Apple TV, Vision Pro, and support for more controllers

Sony has never made the technology that makes Remote Play possible available to the public, but you wouldn’t know based on the number of third-party streaming apps out there. Everything that’s possible now has been reverse-engineered by studying how Remote Play works and how Sony’s apps and the PS Portal connect to a PlayStation. Chiaki is the most popular option — you may have seen people recommend installing it on your Steam Deck — but plenty of alternatives exist.

Asobi is one of the more polished and visual-forward streaming apps available, with a blue and white interface that’s clearly meant to straddle the PS3’s XrossMediaBar and the PS4’s PlayStation Dynamic Menu. Regardless of whether you’re accessing it on your TV, tablet, or phone, the app is broken up into three main sections: a tab for consoles you’re connected to and can stream games over Remote Play, a tab for games that can stream over cloud streaming, and a tab for games that used to be available through PS Now, Sony’s former streaming platform for PS3 games that got folded into PS Plus. If you need to adjust the resolution games stream at or adjust the frame rate (Asobi supports 120fps thanks to built-in frame generation if you stream to an iPad with a ProMotion display), there’s also a Settings menu that’s in easy reach.

In comparison to Sony’s first-party app, which is straightforward and purely focused on streaming from a console, Asobi has a lot to offer. If you’ve ever fantasized about playing your games from another room without having to lug your PS5 with you, Asobi and an Apple TV with a stable Wi-Fi connection could very well do the trick.

Game streaming has its limits

Asobi works, but a lot depends on your Wi-Fi

Hands holding a PS5 controller in front a TV displaying the game Baby Steps.

The process for setting up Asobi is similar to setting up Sony’s official app. You have to log into the app with your PlayStation Network account and copy your account ID number into Asobi to enable cloud streaming. Then you need to grab a code from the Remote Play section of your PlayStation 5 or PlayStation 4’s system settings and copy and paste that into Asobi to set up streaming directly from your console. Once all of that is taken care of, Asobi should then be able to “see” your PlayStation and start streaming.

Even if there were issues, I left my time with Asobi happy with how the app performed.

In my tests, Asobi worked just as well as the official Remote Play app, which is to say performance varied wildly depending on my internet connection. With multiple devices active on my network, movement could stutter during the more intense moments of a shootout in Star Wars Outlaws. Even when things were calm, I noticed some smeary backgrounds and less detail than I normally got playing the game. Baby Steps, which is a far simpler (and more challenging) game, faired a bit better, mainly because it’s not aiming for visual fidelity in the same way Ubisoft’s open-world game is. Even if there were issues, I left my time with Asobi happy with how the app performed. Streaming isn’t a replacement for playing directly on my console, but it is a bit more convenient.

A clear menu of buttons overlayed on the game Baby Steps.

The Apple TV’s support for the PlayStation Dualsense controller meant that I could also play my PS5 games with as much of the experience intact as possible, though Asobi does introduce one weird quirk. For some reason, the touchpad on the DualSense doesn’t work while streaming a game and the PlayStation button acts as the power button on the Apple TV rather than a way to access your PS5’s home screen. In order to access some of those normal functions, you actually need to whip at the Apple TV remote to pull up a menu with buttons for going home or pausing your stream.

Bringing game streaming to the Apple TV

Clearly, some parts of Asobi could be improved, but in terms of delivering what it says on the tin — bringing PlayStation streaming to platforms Sony doesn’t support — it’s a major success. And based on how actively Asobi’s developers engage with their community, the app seems poised to improve over time. As long as Sony continues letting alternative Remote Play apps flourish, there’s plenty of room to grow.