Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass service continues to add value for consumers who choose to subscribe. The model is seemingly setting the example for what many hope will someday become an industry standard. However, Sony’s PlayStation division still has no interest in taking that route. This specifically holds true with regards to launching new games in a subscription service on day one. In reiterating this notion, SIE’s CEO and President Jim Ryan has stated the company doesn’t consider it “sustainable.”
Speaking with GamesIndustry.biz, Ryan made it abundantly clear that Sony’s position on the matter remains unchanged. PlayStation’s catalogue of games is what “defines” the platform, he argued. The executive continued,
We have had this conversation before–we are not going to go down the road of putting new releases titles into a subscription model. These games cost many millions of dollars, well over $100 million, to develop. We just don’t see that as sustainable.
The company’s desire to expand the quality and scope of PlayStation Studios projects doesn’t align with the model of releasing new games via subscription services, Ryan added.
We want to make the games bigger and better, and hopefully at some stage more persistent. So putting those into a subscription model on day one, for us, just doesn’t make any sense. For others in a different situation, it might well make sense, but for us it doesn’t. We want to expand and grow our existing ecosystem, and putting new games into a subscription model just doesn’t sit with that.
PlayStation’s services are adding value in their own right, though. During yesterday’s PS5 showcase, the publisher unveiled PlayStation Plus Collection–an add-on feature coming to PS5 that many are loosely comparing to Game Pass. With PS Plus Collection, subscribers on PS5 will have access to a host of PS4 games that “defined the generation.” Such titles include Batman: Arkham Knight, Bloodborne, God of War, Uncharted 4, and Until Dawn. (The selection of games is likely to vary by region.) This doesn’t exactly measure up to the Xbox Game Pass offerings. Still, PS Plus Collection arguably makes PS Plus all the more enticing, especially for new players and subscribers who may have missed out on the PS4’s catalog of games.
Sony plans to release the PlayStation 5 this fall on November 12th. For $499.99, customers can pick up the Standard Edition with a disc drive. The disc-less Digital Edition is a cheaper option costing $399.99.
[Source: GamesIndustry.biz]
