After months of rumour and speculation, Sony has finally unveiled its Xbox Game Pass competitor in the form of two extra PS Plus subscription tiers. However, unlike how Microsoft handles Game Pass and its own first-party titles, Sony won’t be releasing its new first-party exclusives on day one into its service.Sony has detailed three tiers for its new PlayStation Plus Service. The first is PlayStation Plus Essential, which is unchanged from the current PS Plus offering for $9.99/£6.99/€8.99 a month. Then there is PlayStation Plus Extra, which includes the previous benefits of the first tier and gives subscribers access to a catalogue of up to 400 downloadable PS4 and PS5 games for $14.99/£10.99/€13.99 a month. Finally, there is PlayStation Plus Premium which basically combines PS Plus with PS Now and includes all the benefits from previous tiers, free game trials, and an additional 340 games, including PS3 games (via cloud streaming) and classic PS2, PS1, and PSP games for $17.99/£13.49/€16.99 a month.However, unlike Microsoft and Xbox Game Pass, Sony will not be including its first-party exclusives in any of its new PlayStation Plus tiers, as PlayStation boss Jim Ryan believes the quality of Sony’s games could suffer if they were included in the subscription. In an interview with gamesindustry.biz, Ryan said, “[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. “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.”Gamesindustry.biz also spoke with several games industry analysts surrounding the topic of Sony not putting its brand new releases into the service on the day they came out. Most analysts GI.biz spoke with agreed that Sony’s Extra and Premium tiers would be less appealing than Xbox Game Pass, though they are undecided how much of an issue this really is. What do you make of Sony’s Xbox Game Pass competitor? Do you think the new tiers are any good? Let us know your thoughts and opinions in the comments below.
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