Sony announced a subscription service renamed Playstation plus on Tuesday morning, which combines its two existing monthly products into a three-tier option, which means it will compete with Microsoft’s Xbox game pass.
The new version of Playstation plus was originally known as the internal code name “Spartacus” and is planned to be launched in June. It has three layers of paid content, namely essential ($9.99 per month, $59.99 per year), extra ($14.99 per month, $99.99 per year) and premium ($17.99 per month, $119.99 per year).
Sony’s new PS plus will provide a large number of games to its users at a reasonable low monthly price. According to its initial lineup, it may do a lot of work to make up for Sony’s recent dispute over game preservation.
However, it does not challenge the real subtitle function of Xbox game pass. You still need a real Playstation 4 or 5 to use Playstation plus, at least for now. Sony’s upcoming first-party game will still be released as a separate product.
To be fair, this is still a huge value-added for Playstation users. Sony should have merged its PS plus and PS now services into one option long ago, which provides a huge incentive for current plus users to upgrade to at least one additional layer.
If Sony really wants a large group of people to register for premium in at least a few months, they can access the background files of out of print classics at any time, such as the legend of the Dragon Knight or the law of the rose. Many of Sony’s product lineups released in June are based on its actions and many are based on its inaction.
However, for Sony, in an unusual situation, the release of the new PS plus is at a disadvantage.
According to theory, Microsoft has about 25 million subscribers on some versions of the game pass. This is enough to occupy about 60% of the whole game subscription market.
Some analysts estimate that at present, about 72% of Playstation users have plus. At present, technically speaking, plus is not a game subscription. If a significant number of these users decide to upgrade to a higher level in June, it will be enough to make the competition a competition.
However, Sony is still relying heavily on Playstation itself, and Microsoft is also actively working to promote the game pass to all markets it can enter, including mobile platforms and potential steam deck.
Another question is how the audience and developers will react. An important argument made by Sony on behalf of PS plus is its retro lineup. This may be exciting and may lead to some new and long overdue recovery, but it also means that the new PS plus may not be as useful for game manufacturers as the “discovery engine” used by Microsoft
Microsoft claimed that the game pass actually promoted the sales of the games on it, while Sony specifically hinted at the attraction of the new PS plus to the discontinued game consoles. Unless there is an option to permanently purchase a simulated version of the PS plus retro game (and it should be), it will be less attractive to developers.
Finally, the new PS plus is another example that Sony and Microsoft are no longer traditional competitors. The new version of PS plus represents Sony’s redoubled efforts. Sony continues to rely on and consolidate its current dominant position in the game console field, while Microsoft is actively trying to expand its audience.
More about PS plus tiering:
Essential is almost identical to the current Playstation plus and provides members with additional benefits, such as cloud storage of game storage data, two free games per month, and online multiplayer games. Extra has added “up to 400” downloadable Playstation 4 and 5 games.
The advanced layer includes “up to 340” additional games in the first four generations of Playstation hardware (including portable Playstation). PS3 games can be downloaded through cloud streaming media (which may be related to the difficulty of Playstation 3 to imitate), while games of other generations can be downloaded through streaming media or.
Playstation CEO Jim Ryan wrote on the official Playstation blog that the service plans to launch titles including Sony’s own God of War (2018), Malver’s spider man and its successor miles Morales, WB game “deadly kobat 11” and 2021 hit returns.
However, in an interview with GamesIndustry. Biz, Ryan also said that Sony did not intend to launch first-party Games directly on the new PS plus service on the grounds that it might undermine what he called the “virtuous circle” of successful projects.
“The level of investment we need to make in our studio is impossible (the first party releases it on PS plus on the first day), and we don’t think the chain reaction to the quality of the games we make will be what gamers want,” Ryan said