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At the end of March, PlayStation dropped the news that their two subscription services were merging to form an all-new PlayStation Plus.
Ever since, gamers haven’t been able to stop themselves from comparing the proposed service to its competitor, Xbox Game Pass. Aside from being hosted on competing consoles, there are several differences between the two services. The two features which many players are focused on, are that PlayStation has promised around 700 games compared to Xbox’s variable number, which has been everything from 100 to 500. On the other hand, Xbox adds games to the service as they are released, something PlayStation has said it won’t be offering.
Subscribers to the all-new PlayStation Plus will be looking forward to fantastic PlayStation exclusive titles like Ratchet And Clank. Check out our review in the video below.
In terms of financial success though it appears that there is no debate. According to Twitter account @Zuby_Tech (as spotted by DualShockers) PlayStation has over twice as many members to its subscription services than competitor Xbox. Microsoft estimates that around 25 million people are subscribed to Xbox Game Pass, while Sony estimates that there are currently 48 million subscribers on PlayStation Plus, and more than 3 million for PlayStation Now.
It should be noted that the third big player in the games subscription scene, Nintendo, has reportedly 32 million subscribers to its online service which only offers retro games, most of which came out before the turn of the millennium.
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However, experts believe subscription services won’t be the future of games in the same way that Netflix was for TV and film. Subscription services currently make up only 8% of the gaming market, with the vast majority of revenue coming from microtransactions and DLC. Even adding together all subscribers for the big three gaming services, the number is still dwarfed by the might of Netflix which boasts a whopping 214 million people using the service.
While the future of gaming is trending ever more digital, it seems that gamers aren’t willing to give up ownership of their games quite yet.
Featured Image Credit: Microsoft / SonyTopics: PlayStation, Xbox Game Pass, Xbox
