Do they need to? E3 is coming with plenty to show and Microsoft should have a banger of a second half of the year lined up from Starfield, Redfall, Deathloop and everything else planned. I don’t know why they’d need to worry if Sony are planning to announce a new service that clearly won’t compete with game pass.
Spartacus will probably be solid and have quite a bit of hype around it. I don’t think there’s any reason to downplay it. Just like there’s a ton of hype when Guardians of the Galaxy, Scarlet Nexus, and Hitman 3 hit Game Pass, that hype will probably exist with Spartacus’ second tier (PS4/PS5 games) as well. It of course wouldn’t be as good as Game Pass and I wish Sony would do more, but everything is pointing to this being an overall pretty good service unless they price it outrageously.
However going back to OP’s point, I don’t think Xbox needs to worry too much about diluting Spartacus this week because I think Sony has something else this week. Possibly even a Future of Gaming showcase with God of War and possibly PSVR2. It’s important to remember, Sony’s fiscal year ends this week and they don’t really have anything else announced for this year or next outside of like Forspoken? I think this week will be a massive PlayStation week and Xbox should just chill and prepare for E3.
Don’t disagree.
Stalker 2 was the original plan for this time frame before the delay and now the knows what with the invasion.
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E3 doesn’t exist anymore. The yearly week news blowout is dead
When I say “E3”, I just mean Xbox’s one big show a year. Whether that’s in June at E3 or what, is not what I meant.
That really helped out PSNow… a service that’s been alive for three years longer than Game Pass on a platform that had double the user base. No one is downplaying anything, they’re just observing reality. Unless Sony simply converts all the PSN+ subs to Spartacus out of the gate, I’d be more than willing to bet it doesn’t exceed Game Pass because all the tiers leaked thus far are underwhelming at best.
FTR: Game Pass has 25 million+ compared to PSNow’s 3 million.
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PS Now has been an ever-changing service since it’s launch which was exclusively cloud streaming and you would rent by the hour. PS Now has always been hampered by its original vision and the poor marketing led Sony to basically stop caring about it pretty soon afterwards. Many people don’t even know you can download games from PS Now. I believe that’s the goal of Spartacus, it’s to re-center PS Now with clearer marketing especially now that so many people know what Game Pass is and how it works.
I’m not sure if it’ll exceed Game Pass, but it’s not that crazy to think about. Convincing PS+ subscribers to bump up their subscription a few bucks for a selection of PS4/PS5 games will probably be relatively trivial. I’m not sure how well the third tier will do though. I’m just not sure if PS Now is the proper comparison of what Sony is capable of, it was a product of a time where they were just dropping everything the second it didn’t succeed like PS Vue and PS Vita.
I think as a Game Pass fan, not just because of day one games, but because I like the idea and the future of being able to “rent” games instead of buying them and never touching them after beating them… it’s okay to look forward to different services like this and I’m sure Spartacus will do better than Now.
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Guys… are you forgetting that Games with Gold for April will be revealed this week?
Megaton right there.
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it wont be news, but Imagine the Twitter shitshow if Spartacus doesnt get MLB the Show 22 Day 1 while gamepass gets it. 
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Spartacus will never catch gamepass. Dont be daft.
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You’re putting a lot of words in my mouth and attributing meaning where there was none. All I’m saying, as a response to OP, is that assuming Spartacus exceeding GP because the PlayStation user base is a tad higher than Xbox, when last generation it was nearly 2:1, is not a good bet when history has a counterexample to his argument.
I literally don’t think I said you said anything once. I was just explaining PS Now’s history and how I don’t see it to be comparable to whats possible with Spartacus.
Any stats you have showing that PS is only a “tad” higher this generation ?
There were some financial reports showing lower subscription numbers on a quarter to quarter basis (loss of subscribers for PS+).
Edit: oh, youre talking about the console sales?
Both companies are selling everything they can make for current-gen consoles. However Sony has lowered their quarterly numbers for PS5 console sales.
For the fourth fiscal quarter ending March 31, Sony lowered its revenue estimate for games by 6% due to the shortages and an expected decrease in PS5 hardware sales. Gradually, Sony is building up inventory, but it expects shortages in the first half.
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Just because there’s been a loss of PS+ subs doesn’t mean there was Xbox gold or GamePass growth due to these users changing platforms.
What? @BRiT and I were both talking about hardware… which was a response to your point of install base, but now you’re conflating subs because… why again?
Well we are talking about subscriptions in this topic… GamePass, Spartacus… Who mentioned hardware ?
You seem very hostile
Hostile because I was confused by you conflating two different points… in response to a point you made about hardware install base? Sure bud.
The maximum upper bounds of potential subscribers is driven by hardware, so having less of a gap on current-gen consoles could produce less of a gap on subscribers.
Regardless of that, Sony has had drops in their subscriber counts with their PS+. I think first time it has happened, so market isn’t in go-go-go mode. It won’t be a sure thing to predict.
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Not when cloud subscription works on any device with a screen, it’s not about consoles anymore.