Since 2013

Search

Search

PlayStation’s Jim Ryan Confirms New PlayStation Plus Tiers Won’t Feature Day One Releases Like Xbox Game Pass

For the longest time, many fans from the PlayStation landscape asked when will the platform feature its own version of Xbox Game Pass. Although Microsoft’s Xbox One shipped underperforming the previous Xbox 360 in terms of sales, the firm entered the next console generation with the Netflix-like service cash cow. In the past, we heard whispers of the PlayStation company preparing a “counter” to the Xbox subscription.

From Bloomberg, it was reported that ‘Spartacus’ would be PlayStation’s answer. In that, new tiers would be introduced featuring a slew of upgrade options for the service including pairing PlayStation Now & PlayStation Plus alongside featuring legacy games from prior PlayStation generations. This week, Sony Interactive Entertainment officially announced the subscription options are set to arrive this June.

When speaking to gamesindustry.biz, the comparison to Xbox Game Pass will not be 1:1. Instead, President & CEO Jim Ryan clearly explained that the new payment options will not include day one releases from the PlayStation first-party studios suite.

We feel like we are in a good virtuous cycle with the studios where the investment delivers success, which enables yet more investment, which delivers yet more success. We like that cycle and we think our gamers like that cycle. [In terms of] putting our own games into this service, or any of our services, upon their release… as you well know, this is not a road that we’ve gone down in the past.

And it’s not a road that we’re going to go down with this new service. We feel if we were to do that with the games that we make at PlayStation Studios, that virtuous cycle will be broken. The level of investment that we need to make in our studios would not be possible, and we think the knock-on effect on the quality of the games that we make would not be something that gamers want.

However, despite Ryan’s direct answer to possibly featuring first-party games for the upcoming service options, he does disclose that not everything he says will act out so early in these stages. “The way the world is changing so very quickly at the moment, nothing is forever. Who would have said even four years ago that you would see AAA PlayStation IP being published on PC? We started that last year with Horizon Zero Dawn, then Days Gone, and now God of War – a hugely polished and accomplished PC version of that game.

[We’ve had] great critical success and great commercial success, and everybody has made their peace with that happening and is completely at ease with it. I look back four years and think nobody would have seen that coming. So I don’t want to cast anything in stone at this stage. All I’m talking about today is the approach we’re taking in the short term. The way our publishing model works right now, it doesn’t make any sense. But things can change very quickly in this industry, as we all know.” 

For those unfamiliar with how this new service will act in comparison to Xbox Game Pass, we got you covered! Rectify Gaming has compiled a direct comparison of Xbox Game Pass to the new PlayStation Plus tiers which you can read up on by heading here.

Are you surprised by the decision on behalf of Sony Interactive Entertainment?

Source: gamesindustry.biz

Share Everywhere!
RELATED ARTICLES