Now the question is, will it truly be a similar service to Xbox Game Pass? Is Sony really serious about it? Not so long ago this year Jim actually said Game Pass wasn’t sustainable, or something like it where Xbox actually drops all their first party games on Game Pass.
I’d say Sony is quick to change their tune in that case and it shows that they acknowledge what great value Game Pass truly is and it really is. The fact that we’re getting all the amazing games in development right now at XGS day and date on Game Pass is really just insane. Can and will Sony follow suit? If they bring a GP of their own where Horizon FW, Ratchet etc all drop on day one on it…that would be quite something but the genuine question is, is it sustainable for them?
If they do end up doing this, will they make deals with third parties to get games on there too? If Sony is serious it’s going to mean MS will have competition in that area and at the end of the day the gamers win, because MS for sure will keep up with it. Sony might drop Horizon FW on release day, but then we have MS that might drop Starfield on GP next year.
This brings me to something Phil said in some interviews. MS would be open to the idea of bringing GP to other platforms if those platform holders allow a full Xbox ecosystem on there. It wasn’t a priority though he said. But Jim Ryan giving the hint that they might be up to something tells me they have zero interest in getting Xbox GP on PS5, and that’s fine.
If Sony enters the GP landscape we’re undoubtedly going to see Xbox step it up even more to keep people going back to their GP. Because if Sony ends up getting small, medium, large titles from third parties as well, along with their own games…people might choose that over XGP. But MS holds a very important card, which are of course Bethesda games. The one card they never ever should give up and I’m sure MS realizes that, especially even more so if Sony is serious. Which remains to be seen. Because unlike for MS, it may indeed not be sustainable for Sony.
I always get a bit annoyed when people say that PS needs a Gamepass-like service because they already do in Playstation Now. The only real difference between the two services is that Xbox is putting all their first party content into the service day and date and it’ll stay there forever. Also, you don’t have to stream 360 games. Other than those two keys points, the services are practically the same. They both get the same big 3P games (often as soon as they leave the other’s service), and they both get a good supply of indie games.
If Sony is “serious” about competing with Gamepass, they need to put all their 1st party stuff into the service, or at least do what EA does in bringing their games about 6 months later. That’s it. Their fanbase will lose their minds and then we’ll be able to hear about how PS Now is so much superior to Gamepass. It’ll be a great time.
I do not care, I’m tired of worrying about “threats” and “concerns” if Sony offered a platform like xcloud where I could play Sony exclusives day one without a console I’d probably at least try it out, if not oh well not enough Sony exclusives I’m interested in to put a lot of money into diving in their eco system.
I’m not worried about the long term support for Xbox, for the first time ever MS is all in and all these devs they bought are to huge for MS to just cut loose anytime soon.
I’m happy in the Xbox eco system and what Sony does is pretty irrelevant to me
Sony seems to really be stuck in the old model of single hardware sales and single game purchases. They easily could put some effort in psnow to make it more worthwhile but Sony is lazy as fuck and don’t seem to bothered to put any effort in it.
I don’t think they’ll do exactly the same thing, they value their big 1st party games too much. I could imagine smaller exclusives launching on the PS Now service, maybe stuff that’s not on Xbox (Persona, Nioh, etc), big exclusives X months after launch.
If they do have a PS Now Pro or whatever with all their games day and date, I would expect it to be $20-30/month, just because they think their exclusives are worth a high price.
basically what i came to say , there’s nothing that would be different from a Sony “Gamepass” and what PS Now currently is outside of potentially a rebranding/merging with ps+ (not sure why this hasn’t happened since Now doesn’t require ps+ for multiplayer games as far as I recall). the core issue at the moment outside of major lack of marketing or push behind it is as stated , they refuse to put their first party games on Now in a timely or permanent matter cause they are supposedly “too valuable” (and yet i can get several sony titles for 20 dollars right this moment ).
Until Sony puts their games day one into PS Now permanently, they aren’t going to compare. Remember how easy it is for Sony to get moneyhats. They do that on an install base that is twice the size of Xbox.
Game Pass is approaching 10 times as big as PS Now, and that was after a major push for PS Now including Super Bowl ads.
If Sony wants to get serious, they do so now. However, that’s another bear they’re poking, so expect more acquisitions from MS and a hardball approach on Bethesda if they do it. MS is happy right now because the three market leaders have different approaches.
I don’t believe Sony will get left behind in the subscription wars. They will not challenge Microsoft head on. They don’t have the resources or infrastructure to do so. They can be HBO to Microsoft’s Netflix. The way Microsoft is spending on Game Pass, they can afford to because:
They’re Microsoft
The have a PC presence
The are one of the top 2 cloud businesses in the world
As we’ve seen with Microsoft, it’s not easy building a PC store. It’s certainly not easy locking down substantial PC content that all runs off your store. Stacking Azure servers around the world with high end APUs…well that’s another task altogether.
It takes more than a few top notch 1st party games to compete. Need partnerships. Eventually will need to bid against Microsoft for 3rd party content. Without diversity and consistency of content, the ceiling is low.
That in mind, I feel they’ll mix PS Now and PS Plus and try to thread a needle for value that accomplishes something different than Game Pass Ultimate. Where as Game Pass Ultimate is the center of Microsoft’s gaming universe and the console is an accessory, it will be the opposite for Sony and the Playstation. For them, console will still be the center of their universe and their sub will be an accessory to it.
Oh don’t kid yourself, I’ve heard many times PS Now is more valuable due to a better lineup. Often from the same folks who say “playing old games is useless” which makes it even richer.
Funnily enough, Keighley went on about Basic Cable and HBO, but what you said I think nails it. PlayStation’s endgame is probably the HBO to Microsoft’s Netflix: a carefully curated premium experience that has content with universal appeal vs an all you can eat buffet with some universally appealing titles and tons of stuff for every sort of taste.
It probably doesn’t come as a major shock that I love Xbox Game Pass for many of the same reasons I love Netflix. There is stuff that MS is bankrolling or bringing into the platform that I struggle to find elsewhere and I love them for that. And in the end, not every show needs to be a Game of Thrones much like how not every game needs to be a Halo or Uncharted. Look how good Fall Guys did on PS+, Descenders on Game Pass, Tiger King on Netflix, etc.
Yeah I actually think Netflix vs HBO will be the closest we’ll get to describing the two. Maybe Sony’s HBO does better than HBO or Microsoft’s Netflix does a little worse than Netflix however I think that’s how each service will try to establish it’s brand. HBO doesn’t try to compete with Netflix in terms of quantity and diversity of content and it doesn’t have the reach. It is, however, a very successful product and both services coexist and compliment each other nicely.
How are games from studios like Playground, id Software, Ninja Theory or The Coalition indicative of anything but quality? Xbox has the breadth of genre, the pedigree behind their teams and the production values to match. Netflix my ass. Get that bullshit out of here.
But that only real difference is a huge one though, incredibly huge. Especially considering how big some of these games (budget, scope) will be.
Personally I don’t have a PS4 but I will get a PS5 next year. So I don’t really know everything there is about PS Now, but it’s a streaming service right? Whereas with XGP you download the game itself. Or are PS4 games on there downloadable as well?
But then I wonder what Jim means in that interview. Because it seems they have things in the planning.
Sony might see it that way, that their games are too valuable. Yet we have Xbox putting all their games day and date on GP and plenty of big ones have landed on it and many big ones in development. You can bet that the budget of Starfield is big, let alone TES VI. And that probably goes for Fable, Avowed, inXile RPG too.
So in my opinion the HBO-Netflix thing only goes so far. Xbox will have some smaller games on their, of a lower budget, but also humongous ones and they aren’t done with getting studios either.
In the beginning, yes. After seeing the success of Gamepass allowing you to download your games to play them natively, they finally changed their stance and started doing the same. You still have to stream PS3 games though.
I agree that the difference as it currently stands is huge. But again, if they just put their 1st party into the service it would make it almost identical. And PS Now is about $60 for a full year (might be when it’s regularly on sale), and I personally think it’s still a great value if you’re someone who doesn’t purchase a lot of games. Gamepass is superior, but they’re not as far apart as people like to think. At least, that’s how I see it.
I also don’t think Sony has much faith in PS Now, otherwise they would be investing in it the same way MS is. I hope they wake up and change their mind because it would be nice not to have to pay for 1st party titles.
I see. Sony really should be marketing it more than, because it does sound very similar then. They even have third party PS4 on there monthly.
As for where Xbox will be the bigger difference is with all the Zenimax studios. At least three of them have highly successful and huge, big budget games. That reminds me of what the CFO said, through the Bethesda pipeline increasing Game Pass subscribers.
How are shows on Netflix like House of Cards, Witcher, Stranger Things and Queen’s Gambit indicative of anything but quality? That’s the issue I take with Keighley’s Basic Cable thing is it undersells what MS is doing. It’s not a pure quantity vs quality thing, that’s what I’m trying to frame.
Sony’s games review better, so if you view it on the metric like HBO, they deliver more “bangers” than Netflix even though Netflix has plenty of their own. However, what Netflix and Game Pass may lack in the universal banger, they make up for in a quality assortment of unique content. I don’t see Sony making any Strategy games or investing in teams like DONTNOD and Bloober, or making smaller titles like Battletoads, or going in deep on a Flight Simulator. And that’s what’s so awesome about Game Pass and Netflix, they take risks and take on diverse content. Not everything is a winner, and not everything is for everyone, but in terms of maximizing personal value they are king.
It wasn’t meant to be disparaging. I don’t sub to HBO because not all of the content appeals to me, but I go batty over Netflix because they add older stuff I missed out on and new shows like Toys that Made Us or Hi Score Girl that appeal 100% to me. Much like how I prefer A Plague Tale to TLOU even though the latter is bigger/more universally appealing.
