Yeah most likely, it will be some half-assed version of Game Pass. Will get celebrated by Cultists and gaming media alike as more than it is though, bet on it.
First party games day and date, and staying there, is the only thing I’m interested in.
We all are. But lets be realistic. Its not going to happen.
Good thing is Sony 1st party games get Sales often and quickly. Unlike Nintendo.
Yeah, I buy everything on that console at deep sales since I’m in no rush. Couple of sneaky $1-months though would still be cheaper, hehe.
They did put some 1st party games on PSNow. You can abuse the 7 day trial on PSNow as well.
I only use PSNow to play God of War Collection every now and then
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This.
The thing is that MS hasn’t just been twiddling their thumbs.
They are buying and buying more devs in order to provide a steady stream of content.
Sony needs to understand that those epic single player experiences need to be complimented with the FPSs and TPSs and RTSs and flight Sims and RPGs and racing races and open world racing games etc…
This narrative that somehow these epic Sony experiences counter MS’s slate is being proven false with each Day One release.
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That seems plausible, a way for Sony to make their proposal more attractive, but at the same time what Jim Ryan said about sustainability still holds true.
For people not wanting to click on the link, Sony would do a kind of all-in-one subscription service with music, movies, animes and either PS Plus or PS Now in it.
Well that didn’t take long haha
That’s exactly it.
Let’s not forget how things like PSTV were initially received:
They’ll have all the hype and loyalty to set it up to be a financial success. They’ll pay out way less than MS for 3rd party content and so on. They won’t need a $1 promotional deal. The gaming media hype would surpass anything we’ve seen with GamePass so far. They’re automatically in a place of advantage.
They’re missing all of the other components but we’ve seen time and time again that hype is just as valuable as anything else, if not moreso.
If one was thinking that Sony is making a 1:1 copy of Gamepass, then they’d think that the big problem is that Sony is years behind on this.
But Sony could be making their own unique subscription product that could be more successful. I’ll never underestimate the ability of a competitor to catch up in a short time span. Disney Plus is an obvious example.
They may not need deals with third parties to get people excited. They may release hundreds of PS1, PS2, and PS3 games and that could even be more enticing to loyal fans. They may do what Xbox Live Gold does and offer free weekends with certain third-party games. I think the mistake people are making here is thinking that it’ll be a one to one Gamepass comparable.
They’re too far behind for that, but they have a lot of advantages in creating a service that offers a lot of value.
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That would be without taking into account that MS too wants to make big moves with Game Pass. Disney Plus is catching up with Netflix because Netflix is getting a bit stale ( while also leveraging big IP’s ).
However, we’ve seen MS ready to throw money for GP like never before and they are still in expansion phase. Going from what Nick said, it seems Sony won’t be doing a 1:1 copy of Game Pass though, but something really different.
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This presumes that in the meantime their brand won’t be severely diminished by Xbox dominating the mindshare. That is not a good presumption to make. Sony as a brand is not the indominable defacto market leader ppl imagine it is. It is beholden to the same market forces every other company is and if things continue as they have recently wrt the broader market narrative their branding comfort will disappear real fast.
When you are already the dominant sales leader for console hardware, all the press games on that machine and they know their audience does too. That sets up a feedback loop where more positive news for the market leader is seen as a cherry on top, while for the struggling competitors new initiatives instead get framed as ‘is this so compelling it can “save” the brand?’. In the case of the latter, it becomes nigh impossible to live up to that kinda scrutiny and framing. The feedback loop reinforces the settled status quo in that way. If that inverts to favor Xbox, which it appears to be in the process of doing imho, Sony will be in the hole trying to find bold moves to dig itself out.
Also, ppl should not have so much faith in Sony’s 1P offerings relative to competing titles (this isn’t directed as you nrXic). I see ppl act as if Sony is akin to Nintendo, who have put out hit games of industry leading quality across genres for 30 yrs.
Sony has only been prominent with its 1P offerings during the PS4 era and last year or so of PS3 era. But during 360, MS was also much stronger than Sony was. So stuff changes and can flip real easily. Not just due to devs getting better or worse, but also due to how resource priorities change in the parent companies and how tech advances and how gamers favor different genres with each new cycle. Who is to say cinematic story driven action games are gonna be driving attention this cycle? Sony’s eggs are all in that basket and for all we know gamers will want something deeper than that in the future.
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Yep it wont match gamepass. Sony is closing studios and reducing output for the sake of more blockbusters. Not too mention they just gave away a bunch of free recent-ish exclusives to PS5 owners with the Play at Home initiative. These moves weaken a potential gamepass competitor and signal to me something akin to gamepass isn’t coming anytime soon.
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So the current counter to GP is more of holistic Sony entertainment pass including movies, music, shows and ps now.
What a bizarro world this is 2013 all over again but sides have swapped.
I’m in the middle of listening to it right now, haven’t hit that part yet. 
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Sounds absolutely boring. So its probably true.
I think Sony will kill PSNow with its ancient PS3 server blades and anemic growth. Recently they had the PS+ collection which isn’t a PSNow collection, that shows me where their focus is. And PS+ certainly is the better quality product. Just expand that.
I’m not sure how that makes their proposition more attractive? It doesn’t address any of the issues around the relative value of gaming on their platforms.
I think it’s gonna have to be 1st party titles launch after 12 months into their service, no way they will do day 1 like Xbox. The werid thing is they could easily do this because I see PS exclusives drop hardcore and go on sale pretty quick, for example TLOU:II dropped to $27AUD from $70AUD in just 6 months so they go down quite fast. (I wonder if that’s how they sell so many copies)
Vita TV lived up to the hype for me personally.
Bought one on clearance for $50, never opened the box, then sold it later for ~$300. Can’t beat that!
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I said it in the Podcast chat yesterday, Sony should offer a subscription service just for all their 3rd person exclusives
And call it Sony Samepass
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