If you’ve been keeping an eye on the very messy (and very public) fight that’s going on between Sony and Microsoft at the moment, then the fact that Xbox Game Pass subscribers are way ahead of PS Plus tier subscribers will not surprise you.
The news came out last week as part of a new development in the messy inquiry into whether Microsoft should be allowed to acquire Activsion Blizzard. As an inquiry persists into whether the deal should be allowed to take place, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority published Sony’s response to the authority’s Issues Statement, and we’ve seen some peculiar back and forths between each of the companies in the documents.
Effectively, each company is trying to make itself look as small as possible in order to coax the CMA into thinking it is in the right. The result is a lot of posturing and sabre-rattling that really doesn’t do anyone any favours in the eyes of consumers.
In response to Sony claiming Xbox Game Pass’ 29 million subscribers meant less than its own 47.3 million PS Plus subs, Microsoft suggested that PlayStation change its position on day-and-date additions to the service – after all, it’s clearly working for the Xbox platform holder, right?
The crux of the argument lies in Call of Duty: Sony reckons if CoD was allowed on Xbox, PlayStation services and platforms would be hit badly, and that would be bad for the overall gaming ecosystem.
In response, Microsoft says – and we’re paraphrasing here – ‘well, if you’re worried, why not add your games to PS Plus day and date, like we do’. Microsoft makes a good point. Here is the proper (wordy) quote:
“Further, even if Microsoft succeeds in growing Game Pass with the addition of Call of Duty, the CMA also would have to satisfy itself that Sony could not respond through investments or improvements in its service. It is clear that Sony has a range of options to maintain or improve the competitive position of PlayStation Plus.
“At a minimum, Sony could include additional first- and third-party releases in PlayStation Plus on the ‘day and date’ release. Sony’s first-party exclusives not currently included in PlayStation Plus include prominent titles such as The Last of Us, God of War, Spiderman and the Final Fantasy VII Remake. The inclusion of such titles would be beneficial for gamers.”
But you can see why Sony is resistant; only last week, we learned that God of War Ragnarok is PlayStation’s fastest-selling exclusive ever after it managed to shift a massive 5.1 million copies in just five days. Had it come to PS Plus day-and-date, Sony would stand to have lost out on 5 million-plus sales. It’s a tough decision to weigh up.
Sony’s Jim Ryan explained why the company is against day-and-date releases in an investor briefing earlier this year:
“We are in a virtuous cycle where success has allowed investment, which has generated more success, which is allowing us to invest more and will hopefully generate yet more success.
“That virtuous cycle, we feel that if we were to move to a different model, which involved putting our AAA games into a subscription service on day one, we feel that there is significant risk that the virtuous cycle that we’ve established so successfully would be compromised and potentially broken.”
So, will anything come from this back-and-forth? Will Sony be tempted to put upcoming mega-hits on its PS Plus service, on the day they launch? Probably not. As said at the top of this page, most of the mud-slinging in these documents has been concocted with one goal in mind: Sony wants to kick up enough of a stink that the regulators won’t let Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard acquisition deal go through, and Microsoft wants to make it look like it needs the massive publisher under its belt in order to survive against Sony and Nintendo.
Expect it all to get messier before it wraps up.