PlayStation Plus, Sony’s game subscription service that was born in response to Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass is, as we have said on more than one occasion, a pretty smart move by the Japanese tech. So much so that, in reality, it is hard to believe that they had to think about it so much before deciding to start it up. And it is that, until its official confirmation, at the end of March, the company went from saying I say to saying Diego.
«Our pitch, as you’ve heard, is ‘new games, great games’. We’ve had this conversation before: We’re not going down the path of putting new release titles on a subscription model.«, Said the person in charge of PlayStation. «These games cost many millions of dollars, over 100 million, to develop. We just don’t see it as sustainable.” said Jim Ryan, head of PlayStation as we told you here, back in October 2020, although only a month later, in November of the same year, and with the arrival of PlayStation 5 on the market just around the corner, he opened the door that he had slammed shut shortly before.
From that moment and until the official confirmation, there were several leaks that indicated that Sony was preparing its subscription service, and shortly before its launch, we learned that the selection of games that would integrate the different levels of PlayStation Plus would be tremendously complete. Now, there is a specific matter, one in particular, with which Sony seems unwilling to catch up with Microsoft and its Xbox Game Pass. And, like it or not to the executives of the Japanese technology, it is an important point and that, in the current situation, makes the Microsoft service more attractive.
I speak of course Sony’s refusal to add the big releases (or at least part of them) to PlayStation Plus the same day of its launch, something that Microsoft does regularly with the premieres. Something that, according to what we can read in VGC, does not seem to be changing in the short term, at least according to Shuhei Yoshida, Head of PlayStation Independent Developer Initiatives.
“We believe in launching a title premium at launch and after maybe six months, three months or three years, when game sales go down, inclusion in this service, PS Plus Extra, can help introduce these games to new and broader audiences”.
Personally, and I’ve been saying this since day one, it seems to me that Microsoft is being much more courageous and innovative with Xbox Game Pass than Sony is with PlayStation Plus. Of course, we can also understand that Microsoft has more “muscle” to be able to invest and risk in initiatives like this one. However, it is easy to imagine PlayStation users expecting that, sooner or later, Sony follow in the footsteps of Microsoft also in this regard. Personally, I think it will be good for Sony, for its players and, therefore, for the entire gaming ecosystem.
