Sony is taking another (giant) step towards the concept of subscription gaming, by revamping its PlayStation Plus offer from top to bottom to include several levels, access to a catalog of games and even game streaming via absorption. from PS Now.
Sony unveils – finally – its response to Microsoft’s Game Pass, by announcing a major overhaul of its PlayStation Plus offer, which will now integrate the PlayStation Now cloud gaming service. Until now, PlayStation Plus subscribers have been offered monthly games and perks, whether they’re on PS4 or PS5. Besides that, those who wanted to could subscribe to PS Now with its catalog of hundreds of PS2, PS3 and PS4 games available on demand. From June, three “unified” subscription plans will be offered and some will include a large number of games, downloadable or playable directly in streaming.
The first formula, the cheapest, will take up the advantages of the current PlayStation Plus. Called PlayStation Plus Essential, it will be billed at €8.99 per month, €24.99 per quarter or €59.99 per year, giving access to two games to download per month, exclusive reductions, online storage of its saves and online multiplayer features. No changes to report, therefore, for current PlayStation Plus subscribers.
The second formula, called PlayStation Plus Extra, offered at prices of €13.99 per month, €39.99 per quarter or €99.99 per year, will include all the advantages of the “Essential” level, adding the access to a catalog of approximately 400 games from the PS4 and PS5 catalogs, “including hits from the PlayStation Studios catalog“, specifies Sony, who adds that these games can be downloaded for offline access. It is therefore not cloud gaming.
Finally, the third and last formula called PlayStation Plus Premium, billed at €16.99 per month, €49.99 per quarter or €119.99 per year, will take up all the elements of the “Essential” and “Extra” levels by adding approximately 340 additional games, in cloud gaming for PS3 titles and in download or cloud gaming for PS, PS2 and PSP games. Another advantage: all the games integrated into the Extra formula become playable here in streaming from a PS4, a PS5 or a PC. Finally, Premium subscribers will also have the privilege of accessing limited-time trial versions of certain games.
Recent AAA games, but not as soon as they were released
“When the service launches, we plan to include games like Death Stranding, God of War, Marvel’s Spider-Man, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Mortal Kombat 11 and Returnal. We work closely with the creative developers at PlayStation Studios and our third-party partners to include some of the best gaming experiences, as well as an ever-expanding library“says Sony, who knows that to be attractive, its new PlayStation Plus subscription formulas will certainly have to integrate old games with a strong reputation, but also offer sufficiently recent games. We have seen this with the Xbox Game Pass , the integration of big games from the day of release has boosted interest in Microsoft’s subscription service.
That said, it will be necessary to judge on the spot. PlayStation boss Jim Ryan just told GamesIndustry.biz: “[En ce qui concerne] integrating our own games into this service or any of our services as they come out… As you know, that’s not a route we’ve taken in the past. And that’s not a path we’re going to take with this new service. We believe that if we did this with the games we make at PlayStation Studios, the virtuous cycle would be broken. The level of investment we need in our studios would not be possible, and we believe that doing so would have a detrimental snowball effect on the quality of the games we make, which gamers don’t want.“.
Logically, Sony also confirms that the launch of this new version of PlayStation Plus will immediately mark the disappearance of PlayStation Now, whose subscribers will be automatically migrated to a PlayStation Plus Premium formula “at no additional cost“.