Reactions to Sony's revamped PlayStation Plus subscription service have been mixed. The recently unveiled Xbox Game Pass competitor will combine the publisher's old PS Plus service with its PlayStation Now cloud gaming platform in a new single subscription model. At three price points, it will offer access to a library of games, a slate of retro titles, and streaming options.
Lewis Ward, a global video game industry analyst and director of research at market intelligence firm IDC, shared his thoughts on the new PS Plus with TechRadar. He describes the redesign as a welcome change that is long overdue, but one that deliberately reduces Microsoft's service offerings.
For starters, the mid-tier of PS Plus, which will be the same price as Game Pass Ultimate, will only include 400 games. That's less than the more than 450 titles currently included in Xbox Game Pass.
"We read this as having a double purpose," says Ward. "Most subscribers don't want a massive catalog with a lot of junk, but rather an optimized catalog with better overall quality and fewer catalog options, which means that included games should get more play time and generate higher revenue per title for third-party studies.
"Interestingly, Meta's Quest Store also contains around 400 titles, and Oculus executives have touted the benefits of keeping a strict selection in their store. Sometimes less is more.
Game Pass has had great success adding iconic Xbox games like Halo Infinite to the service on the same day they launch. Sony will not follow. The tech giant has already confirmed that it won't be adding its own versions to PS Plus on launch day, which Ward says will make it harder to take up the service.
“believes that adding proprietary AAA games to platform-based subscriptions at launch is financially unwise and reduces the share of service revenue that ultimately goes to third-party studios,” he says Ward.
"Subscribers should not expect a new PS5 game from PlayStation Studios to be available until the end of 2023."
One major point of difference between the new PS Plus and Xbox Game Pass is Sony's limited push into PC and mobile gaming. While Xbox Cloud Gaming lets you stream over a hundred titles to your mobile phone and PC, PlayStation Now hasn't marketed much to PC gamers since its launch in 2014. Sony's interest in mobile cloud streaming will fade. completely. with the launch of this new PS Plus.
"PC streaming is still around, but we don't see much in terms of heavy usage or significant promotion," Ward says.
"From that perspective, it's clear that Microsoft has much higher goals for what Game Pass Ultimate can achieve from a mobile subscription perspective, especially in developing markets, in the coming years compared to PlayStation's goals.
If nothing else, this new and improved PS Plus is Sony's first proper acknowledgment of the importance of gaming subscription services. But this is not a revolutionary gesture.
"This is 'Follow the Joneses', the Joneses being the Xbox team, Ward adds. They have left money on the table and this new approach should get them at least halfway to closing that gap in the next two years at the most." .
For now, fans remain divided on the service. While some are excited to be able to play retro PlayStation games on their PS5, others see this new PS Plus as a half step that doesn't go far enough.