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Asobi: Remote Play vs Chiaki-ng: What the New Steam Deck PlayStation Client Adds

2026-08-12 · News and analysis

Affiliate disclosure: This guide contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you. Learn more.

PlayStation Remote Play on Linux is not new. Chiaki has been doing it for years, and its chiaki-ng fork is a genuinely good piece of software that costs nothing.

So the interesting question about Asobi: Remote Play, which turned up on Steam in August 2026, is not whether it streams your PS5 to a Steam Deck. It is whether it does anything chiaki-ng does not. It does, and the answer is a feature that used to be a PlayStation Portal exclusive. For the wider picture on every route into PS5 streaming, see PS5 remote play on a handheld.

What Asobi Actually Is

Asobi: Remote Play is a PlayStation streaming client from a developer called Inside Internet, published on Steam under app ID 4505440.

It does two separate things:

Remote play from your own console. Register a PS4 or PS5, stream it over your local network or the internet. This is the part chiaki-ng already does well.
PlayStation Plus Premium cloud streaming. Stream supported titles from Sony's servers, including PS5 games you own, with no console involved at all.

The second one is the headline. Until now, cloud streaming from the Premium library on a handheld meant buying a PlayStation Portal. Asobi puts it on a Steam Deck.

The Playtest Situation, and Why There Is No Price Yet

This part goes stale fastest, so here is the state of things as of 12 August 2026.

Asobi is in a free public playtest on Steam. It is not a finished release. During the playtest, every premium feature is unlocked for free, which is exactly why the premium tier has no announced price. Sign up through the Steam store page and you get the full feature set at no cost while it lasts.

When it does launch properly, the split is planned like this.

Free Tier vs Premium Tier

Feature	Free	Premium
Remote play from your PS4 or PS5	Yes	Yes
PS Plus Premium cloud streaming	Yes	Yes
Resolution and framerate	1080p / 30fps SDR	1080p / 60fps, up to 120fps output
HDR	No	Yes
4K upscaling	No	Yes, on supported displays
Full controller support	No	Yes
Gyro input and haptic feedback	No	Yes
Bitrate control	Automatic only	Manual
Low latency modes	No	Yes
Zoom and pan	No	Yes
Console registration	Yes	Yes
Multiple local profiles and profile sync	Yes	Yes

The free tier is genuinely usable. 1080p30 is fine for most single player games. The features that push you toward premium are gyro, haptics, and the higher framerate, which matter most in shooters and anything twitchy.

What You Need

A Steam Deck or another SteamOS device. The listed minimum is SteamOS 3.0. It runs on general Linux too.
A valid PlayStation Network account.
A PS4 or PS5 for remote play, or a PlayStation Plus Premium subscription for cloud streaming. You do not need both.
A strong 5 GHz network. As with every streaming client, this decides more about your experience than any setting in the app.

A Windows version has been announced but has not shipped as of publication.

Asobi vs Chiaki-ng, Head to Head

	Asobi: Remote Play	Chiaki-ng
Cost	Free tier, paid premium tier	Completely free
Licence	Proprietary	Open source
Remote play from your console	Yes	Yes
PS Plus Premium cloud streaming	Yes	No
Platforms	SteamOS and Linux now, Windows announced	Linux, Windows, macOS, Steam Deck
Distribution	Steam store	GitHub, Flathub
HDR	Premium tier	Yes
Maturity	Playtest, August 2026	Years of development, roughly 2,300 GitHub stars
Sony endorsement	None	None

The honest summary is that chiaki-ng remains the better default for plain remote play. It is free forever, it is open source, it is mature, and it runs everywhere. If all you want is your own PS5 on your own Deck, install chiaki-ng and stop reading.

Asobi earns its place on the cloud streaming feature. If you pay for PlayStation Plus Premium, Asobi lets a Steam Deck do something chiaki-ng structurally cannot. That is the whole case for it.

If a guide elsewhere tells you to install chiaki4deck, note that this is the old name for chiaki-ng. The project was renamed once it outgrew the Steam Deck and added proper Windows, macOS, and Linux support. Anything still using the old name has not been updated recently.

The Caveat Worth Taking Seriously

Asobi is not endorsed by Sony.

This is not a legal warning, it is a practical one. Unofficial clients depend on PlayStation services behaving a certain way, and PlayStation is under no obligation to keep behaving that way. If Sony changes something on its end, third party clients can break with no notice and no recourse.

Chiaki-ng carries the same risk, and has survived a long time. But do not build your only way of playing around an app that a platform holder could switch off. If PlayStation on a handheld is genuinely important to you, the PlayStation Portal is the option nobody can revoke.

Is It Worth Installing

While the playtest is free, yes, without much hesitation. You get the complete premium feature set for nothing, and if you have a Premium subscription you get to find out whether console free cloud streaming on a Deck is good enough for you before anyone asks for money.

Whether it is worth paying for later depends entirely on one question. Do you subscribe to PlayStation Plus Premium? If yes, Asobi is the only way to get that library onto a Steam Deck, and that is worth something. If no, chiaki-ng does everything you need and always will.

If you are still deciding what hardware to run this on, our Steam Deck OLED review covers the device itself, and PS5 remote play on a handheld compares every route including the Portal and Android handhelds.

Buy it: Steam Deck OLED on Amazon (from $789)

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Asobi: Remote Play?

A PlayStation streaming client for SteamOS and Linux, published on Steam by Inside Internet. It streams from your own PS4 or PS5, and it also supports PlayStation Plus Premium cloud streaming, which lets a Steam Deck play supported titles without any console at all.

How much does Asobi cost?

The base app is free and streams at 1080p and 30fps in SDR. A paid premium tier adds 1080p60, output up to 120fps, HDR, 4K upscaling, full controller support, gyro and haptics, manual bitrate, and low latency modes. That price has not been announced. During the current Steam playtest all premium features are free.

Is Asobi better than chiaki-ng?

For plain remote play from your own console, no. Chiaki-ng is free forever, open source, mature, and cross platform. Asobi's real advantage is PlayStation Plus Premium cloud streaming, which chiaki-ng does not support at all. Pick Asobi if you have a Premium subscription, chiaki-ng otherwise.

Do I need a PS5 to use Asobi?

Not for cloud streaming. If you have a PlayStation Plus Premium subscription, Asobi can stream supported titles from Sony's servers with no console in the house. You do need a PS4 or PS5 for the standard remote play mode.

Does Asobi work on Windows?

Not yet. It launched on SteamOS and Linux first, with the Steam Deck as the primary target. A Windows version has been announced but had not shipped as of August 2026.

Is Asobi official or approved by Sony?

Neither. It is a third party app with no PlayStation endorsement. That means it could stop working if Sony changes something on its end. The same is true of chiaki-ng and every other unofficial client.

Can I run Asobi on a Legion Go S or ROG Ally?

If the device runs SteamOS or another Linux distribution, it should work, since the requirement is SteamOS 3.0 or Linux rather than Steam Deck hardware specifically. On a Windows handheld you would need to wait for the announced Windows build. Our guide to installing SteamOS on third party handhelds covers switching those devices over.