Update: Additional insight on Sony’s revamped PS Plus subscription comes courtesy of Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad, who explained on Twitter: “Sony’s services revamp isn’t looking to compete 1:1 with Xbox Game Pass, and it’s leaning into adding additional value through a tiered approach. [It’s] more about combining its two existing services into one and adding extra perks. PS Now growth was low.”
All of this, of course, makes sense, but considering the climate, this is going to be a challenge for PlayStation to package. To be fair, though, PS Plus and PS Now do need a makeover, and if Sony can successfully add value and subsequently upsell subscribers, then this may not be a terrible idea. The proof, as always, will be in the pudding.
Original Story: Sony will reveal its heavily rumoured Xbox Game Pass-inspired PS Plus reboot as early as next week, according to Bloomberg. The subscription service – which first leaked last year – will be introduced with a “splashy lineup of hit games from recent years”, according to reliable journalists Jason Schreier and Takashi Mochizuki, who were speaking with “people familiar with the plans”.
The service will apparently combine PS Plus and PS Now, and there’ll be a variety of tiers to choose from. Internal documents outed last month hinted that there’d be three options: Essential ($10 per month), Extra ($13 per month), and Premium ($16 per month). It’s rumoured that Extra will include a vault of on-demand games, while Premium will throw in streaming functionality as well.
For clarity, Essential is being described as the current, established PS Plus offering – although we don’t yet know if there’ll be cheaper annual options available. It seems unlikely Sony will make any adjustments to the basic subscription, and will instead rely on trying to upsell existing members.
Additional perks for more expensive tiers will apparently include “classic games” and extended trials, although crucially there’s no mention of whether the service will offer day one exclusives like Xbox Game Pass – in the past, Sony has said that’s unsustainable. It’ll be interesting to see how PlayStation plans to position this, and how it intends to bridge the value deficit against its closest competitor.
It’s worth noting that any of the aforementioned documentation represented early plans, and thus will be subject to change. As such, we’ll need to wait and see exactly what’s in store, and how Sony intends to package it. If this Bloomberg report is to be believed, however, we could find out as early as next week, which corroborates previous rumours that suggested the service was almost ready for primetime.
