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

2026-08-12 · News and analysis

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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 and reached 1.0 that October, 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.

One thing has changed around this app since we first wrote it up, and it matters more than any feature in it. Sony is retiring its own PlayStation Plus app on PC on 10 December 2026, which makes this third-party client the only PC-facing route to the Premium cloud catalogue. Whether it keeps working past that date is genuinely unresolved, and we lay out what is and is not known in our piece on the retirement. Read that before you subscribe to Premium for this.

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:

1. 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.
2. 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.

Version 1.0 Shipped, and the Price Is Known

Updated November 2026. When this guide first ran in August 2026 Asobi was a free public playtest with every premium feature temporarily unlocked and no announced price. That is no longer the state of things, and both facts have changed.

Asobi reached version 1.0 on 9 October 2026. The base app is free, and a premium upgrade called Asobi Premium costs 9.99 US dollars as a one-off. The playtest arrangement where everything was unlocked for nothing has ended.

Free Tier vs Premium Tier

The free tier is genuinely usable and it does include cloud streaming, which is worth knowing because it means you can find out whether this works for you before paying anything. 1080p30 is fine for most single player games when streaming from your own console.

The one number to pay attention to is the 720p ceiling on free cloud streaming. On a Deck's screen that is a real step down from the remote play path, and it is where the upgrade earns its keep if cloud streaming is your reason for being here at all.

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.

Windows is supported. It shipped with version 1.0 on 9 October 2026, so the store listing now covers Windows, Linux and SteamOS. Our August version of this guide said the Windows build had been announced but not delivered, which was true then and is not true now. Windows handheld owners no longer have to wait.

Asobi vs Chiaki-ng, Head to Head

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

The free tier costs nothing and includes cloud streaming, so trying it is an easy yes. You get to find out whether console-free cloud streaming on a Deck is good enough for you before anyone asks for money.

Whether the 9.99 dollar upgrade is worth it 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, the free tier caps cloud streaming at 720p, and the upgrade is what lifts that. If no, chiaki-ng does everything you need and always will.

There is now a second question stacked on top of the first, and it is the more important one. Sony retires its own PlayStation Plus app on PC on 10 December 2026. That does not directly touch this app, which was never built on Sony's client, but it does mean the only PC-facing route to the Premium cloud catalogue after that date is an unofficial one. We would not start paying for Premium specifically for this route until the date has passed and the answer is observable. See the retirement piece for what is actually known.

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. Street price starts around $789.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Asobi: Remote Play?

A PlayStation streaming client for Windows, Linux and SteamOS, 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. It streams remote play at 1080p and 30fps in SDR, and cloud streaming at 720p and 50fps in SDR. A premium upgrade costs 9.99 US dollars as a one-off and raises those to up to 1080p60 with HDR for remote play and up to 4K native 60fps with HDR for cloud streaming, while also adding controller haptics, gyro and adaptive triggers, manual bitrate control, low latency modes and frame generation up to 120fps.

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?

Yes. It launched on SteamOS and Linux first with the Steam Deck as the primary target, and Windows support arrived with version 1.0 on 9 October 2026. The store listing now covers Windows, Linux and SteamOS.

Will Asobi still do cloud streaming after Sony retires its PC app?

Nobody outside Sony can say yet. Sony is retiring its own PlayStation Plus app on PC on 10 December 2026, and Asobi is a separate third-party client that was never built on it, so the simple reading is that nothing changes. The complication is that cloud streaming to a PC would then only be happening through unofficial clients, and whether Sony's service stays reachable from a PC is a question about its backend rather than about this app. We would wait until after 10 December before paying for a Premium subscription specifically for this.

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?

Yes, on either operating system now. The Linux requirement is SteamOS 3.0 or another distribution rather than Steam Deck hardware specifically, and since version 1.0 there is a Windows build too, so a Windows handheld needs no conversion. If you would rather run SteamOS on one anyway, our guide to installing SteamOS on third party handhelds covers switching those devices over.

Related Reading

• PS5 Remote Play on a Handheld: Every Option Compared
• Sony is retiring the PS Plus app on PC — what that does and does not do to this route
• Cloud Gaming on Retro Handhelds
• Steam Deck Retro Gaming Guide
• Steam Deck OLED Review
• How to Install SteamOS on the ROG Ally, Legion Go, and MSI Claw
• SteamOS vs Bazzite vs Windows
• PS4 Emulation Status in 2026