In case you missed it, yesterday, Sony officially announced their new, souped-up version of PlayStation Plus. We already kind of knew it was coming - rumours had been circulating for some time, and a lot of them ended up being completely accurate.
The service is being split into three tiers - Essential (basically just PS Plus as we know it), Extra (PS Plus but with the other existing subscription service, PS Now, added in), and Premium, which is obviously the star of the show. Those willing to pay for the most expensive tier (at £99.99/$119.99 a year) will get access to a library of classic PlayStation games, cloud streaming, and time-limited game trials. However, people were quick to point out that this list of benefits doesn’t include access to some titles on their release day - one of the best features from the rival Xbox Game Pass.
Premium and Extra tier subscribers of the new PS Plus service will be able to access a bunch of great games at no extra cost, including Spider-Man: Miles Morales - check out the gameplay footage below.
In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, the CEO of PlayStation, Jim Ryan, explained why this is the case: “We feel like we are in a good virtuous cycle with the studios,” he said. “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.
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“[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,” he continued. “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.”
As Ryan notes in the interview, there are currently 48 million PS Plus subscribers, so it’s understandable that PlayStation would be put off from offering their shiniest new games essentially free of charge to that many people. However, he went on to explain that the decision to leave out day-one releases from the service isn’t final.
“I don't want to cast anything in stone at this stage. All I'm talking to today is the approach we're taking in the short term,” he added. “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.”
The all-new PS Plus service will be launching sometime in June.
Featured Image Credit: Sony, Santa Monica Studio / Sony Interactive EntertainmentTopics: PlayStation, Playstation Plus