Playstation Plus

[wakka]

Yep, I think that's the danger with expectations. Absolutely nothing about this has at all sounded like a Game Pass competitor compared to simply being a PSNow/PS+ merger. From that perspective it's not a Game Pass equivalent anymore than anyone ever called Game Pass a PSNow competitor.

If Sony plans on rolling out Azure support to expand the selection with PS1, PS2, PS3 titles on top of a wider range of PS4 and PS5 titles then they instantly revitalise PSNow as a prominent service with a much larger selection of titles across generations than Game Pass, all without sacrificing first party sales. In the same way no-one is going to see Nintendo tossing away their 10+, 20+, 30+ software sales for a sub service either.

If PS+ is standard £50 a year then this would be like having another tier like Ultimate on Xbox where you get 12 months of PS+ and a rebranded Now under a new monikor like PS+ Premium for something like £79.99

Less money than selling Now seperately but a lot more subs than the current stagnant userbase for Now draws in

Sensible analysis and sounds very likely. I think as you suggest it's going to be a halfway house between the current PS+ and the current GPU, with pricing to match - not something that will match GPU.

[QualityChimp]

I know I'm not really the whale they're looking for, but I don't really like the Game Pass model.

To play online, I have to have Gold/PS+ (plus historically you needed them to stream stuff, but I think that's all history now).
I pay a set price to be able to play online and chat to friends (IIRC Microsoft used to charge, not sure nowadays, but you've never needed PS+ to chat on a PlayStation. I assume that hasn't changed with PS5.)

With that online pass, I'm also given a few games each month. Some I'll play, most I won't, but it's a nice bonus.

Personally, I like to buy games when they're in a sale for around a fiver. They're mine (usual online "ownership" caveats applied) to play if I'm subbed or not.

Having a library of loads of games just doesn't work for me. I got Game Pass for £1 again recently - I played SoR4 again and failed to play Lost Planet 2 in time. For me, it's just not good value. I like having a small, focussed library.

HOWEVER, I can understand why some people like it. It would just be nice if Sony keep the option for PS+ rather than it's PS++ for a higher price or nothing.

EDIT: If it let me play Gradius V in HD, I'd snap their hands off!

[hudson]

Imagine Ridge V too.... sheesh never gonna happen

[chopemon]

If they don't make these back compat games run natively on my PS5 and I have to stream them, they can kiss a larger sub from me goodbye. I mean, I can play all the PS1, 2, 3 and P games I want on original hardware so it doesn't really bother a big cool boy like me there is no way I'm playing a streaming video of a game.

[Neon Ignition]

Yep, if PSNow doesn't already appeal then this shake up likely won't either. As it is though PSNow is a bit of a back of the cupboard deal with Sony, something that's easy to forget exists, so making this more exposed is easy money for them

[wakka]

They're probably looking at GPU and thinking that they're currently leaving money on the table by only charging £50 for PS+, when it's clear that customers are willing to pay more to get more when it comes to game subscription services.

Without launching a full scale GPU competitor, there's plenty of room between the £50 PS+ pricepoint and the £135 GPU one for them to slide in with an ~£80 offering which expands the basic tier of PS+ with more available software.

It's almost like they made The Forbidden Comparison at Sony HQ and compared PS+ to GPU (although I bet most of the people in the meeting were totally non-plussed and were like - 'What are you saying?! You can't compare them! They're totally different!'). Teehee

[Lebowski]

They're probably looking at GPU and thinking that they're currently leaving money on the table by only charging £50 for PS+, when it's clear that customers are willing to pay more to get more when it comes to game subscription services.

Without launching a full scale GPU competitor, there's plenty of room between the £50 PS+ pricepoint and the £135 GPU one for them to slide in with an ~£80 offering which expands the basic tier of PS+ with more available software.

It's almost like they made The Forbidden Comparison at Sony HQ and compared PS+ to GPU (although I bet most of the people in the meeting were totally non-plussed and were like - 'What are you saying?! You can't compare them! They're totally different!'). Teehee

the Thing is with game-pass its not like Microsoft has been throwing out banger for the last few years and its only just now that we are starting to see decent first party stuff, Halo Infinite, Forza 5 and Pysconaughts 2 are pretty much the best micorsoft has had it in recent years. Before this the first party games were not the quality of games like Spiderman or Horizon Zero Dawn, they where things like Cackdown 3 and Sea of not much to do. Where games pass has done well is the consistent flow of interesting Indie games an extended library of mid tier stuff and the odd big headline grabbing Day one game like Outriders.

what i find interesting is how short some gamepass games stay on the service though, Red dead Redemption and GTA5 are not on the service anymore, and then their where a few indie games that i saw added to gamepass and thought looked interesting that where surprising absent from library when i subscribed, Untitled goose game, Celeste, The Touryst, and Carto have all been removed sadly.

[wakka]

Yeah, it's a good point. As a service it's built its rep on quality curation as much as anything else. It's not really been the MS AAAs that have done the business. Most of the ones in the Bone era were just not great - State of Decay 2, Crackdown 3, etc, I mean those are 6/10 games at best.

Again for me that just shows that Sony could be pulling their socks up more with PS+, which this mooted PS++ sounds like they might be. There's room for it to be better and more expansive, without leaping to the extreme of giving away the family jewels of the first party games on day 1.

[nonny]

Yeah, it's a good point. As a service it's built its rep on quality curation as much as anything else. It's not really been the MS AAAs that have done the business. Most of the ones in the Bone era were just not great - State of Decay 2, Crackdown 3, etc, I mean those are 6/10 games at best.

Again for me that just shows that Sony could be pulling their socks up more with PS+, which this mooted PS++ sounds like they might be. There's room for it to be better and more expansive, without leaping to the extreme of giving away the family jewels of the first party games on day 1.

I dunno... If you're focusing solely on new releases then yes, it's only just starting to see quality first party content with Flight Simulator, Psychonauts 2, Forza Horizon 5 and Halo Infinite...

But if you bypassed the Xbox ecosystem for the past generation you've also got stuff like the entire Gears and Halo series on there and not just backwards compatible, but now running at 4K120 or 4K60 in most with auto HDR to boot.

Same goes for Fable, Ori and I guess most of the Bethesda titles now including Doom etc ...

The amount of backward compatible first party titles on there is pretty compelling and most have seen some upgrades.

I really hope Sony does similar with their back catalogue.

[Cassius_Smoke]

Sony has been pretty poor on how previous generation stuff is handled.
The ps2 is the most successful console of all time, and you can only officially play a couple of dozen titles.
Most PS4 games don't have any frame rate improvements unless it has an unlocked FR to begin with.
MS blows it out of the water.

[wakka]

I dunno... If you're focusing solely on new releases then yes, it's only just starting to see quality first party content with Flight Simulator, Psychonauts 2, Forza Horizon 5 and Halo Infinite...

But if you bypassed the Xbox ecosystem for the past generation you've also got stuff like the entire Gears and Halo series on there and not just backwards compatible, but now running at 4K120 or 4K60 in most with auto HDR to boot.

Same goes for Fable, Ori and I guess most of the Bethesda titles now including Doom etc ...

The amount of backward compatible first party titles on there is pretty compelling and most have seen some upgrades.

I really hope Sony does similar with their back catalogue.

Yeah some decent older stuff. But I was playing plenty of Xbox last gen, and the exclusives were really bad compared to PlayStation. I'm not even that into Sony's very particular style of dad 'em up, but the quality of stuff like Spider-Man was just light years ahead of efforts like Crackdown 3.

The point Lebowski was making, I think, is that Game Pass initially built a rep, during those fallow days of decent Xbox exclusives, on older games and well curated indies. A putative PS Plus Pass (say that fast three times) could do the same, without needing to lob the £70 AAAA titles on there day one too.

[Tobal]

whatever they are cooking up has to belter for me to fork out any extra cash, and unlike the xbox OG to 360, Ps1 and PSP is extremely easy to emulate and iso's very easy to get, they can be made to look quite good with shaders let alone all the texture mods/hacks to fix warping and add widescreen. Any value going to be in the Ps2/3 stuff, Ps2 emulation been stalled for years and ps3 a right hassle, both aren't great for accuracy either, but if it some sort of streaming service then... no thanks.

[MartyG]

January 2022 games from PlayStation Plus avaiable from 4th Jan

Dirt 5 -- PS4, PS5
Deep Rock Galactic -- PS4, PS5
Persona 5 Strikers -- PS4

Nice selection there.

[source]

[nonny]

January 2022 games from PlayStation Plus avaiable from 4th Jan

Dirt 5 -- PS4, PS5
Deep Rock Galactic -- PS4, PS5
Persona 5 Strikers -- PS4

Nice selection there.

[source]

Yeah all three are good if not great. Stellar month really.

[MartyG]

February 2022 Goodness

EA Sports UFC 4 -- PS4
Planet Coaster: Console Edition -- PS5
Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep: A Wonderlands One-Shot Adventure -- PS4

[source]