Gone are the times when, as we told you here, Jim Ryan, head of PlayStation, stated, very emphatically, that a service like Xbox Game Pass for PlayStation had no place in Sony’s plans. It was October 2020, and these were his statements about it: «For us, having a catalog of games is not something that defines a platform«.
«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.”. At that time Xbox Game Pass was already aiming very highand its subsequent evolution has proven to be a formidable success for Microsoft.
It did not take long, however, for the rotundity of these affirmations began to unravel. And it is that only a month later, in November 2020, Ryan himself, in an interview, cracked open the door that he had slammed shortly before. There were only a few weeks left for the launch of the PlayStation 5, and probably in the Sony offices alarms associated with the growth of Xbox Game Pass began to sound. Suddenly, the model began to make sense.
However, a year had to pass since that 90-degree turn (from “no” to “maybe”) for the change of direction to be completed. It was a few months ago, in December of last year, when a leak revealed to us that Sony was already designing its own subscription service, codenamed PlayStation Spartakus, and even told us that it would integrate current services and that it would have three subscription levels.
Even so, Sony would still take a couple of months to confirm, this time officially, that PlayStation Spartakus was not a rumor, but an open secret, and even confirmed the prices of the various subscription levels, which are set at 10, 13 and 16 dollars. This happened at the end of last month but, since then, “radio silence” again. A silence used by the always controversial Michael Pachter to predict a very dark future for PlayStation and, therefore, for Sony.
And this is when, again, we have to return to the rumors and the leaks, because for now Sony has not released a pledge about when its subscription service for PlayStation will finally arrive. This, of course, would invite us to think that there is still a long way to go… except that Bloomberg, who has already leaked the first data of the service, now affirms that PlayStation Spartakus, which most likely will not have this final name, could debut as early as next week.
If its launch is confirmed next week, we can say that Sony has taken about a year and a half to turn 180 degrees that has led the company to disdain a Sony Game Pass for PlayStation to materialize it. Now of course the most interesting thing will be to check with which titles the service debutssince obviously this will be a key factor to be able to speculate on its success or failure once it is operational.
