Jim Ryan teases a response beyond the existing PlayStation Now service.
Just two months ago, Playstation CEO Jim Ryan wasn’t too friendly to the idea of a first-party Xbox Game Pass-esque subscription equivalent for PlayStation 5.
“For us, having a catalogue of games is not something that defines a platform,” Ryan said in an interview with gamesindustry.biz. “Our pitch, as you’ve heard, is ‘new games, great games’. We have had this conversation before – we are not going to go down the road of putting new releases titles into a subscription model. These games cost many millions of dollars, well over $100 million, to develop. We just don’t see that as sustainable.”
Has team PlayStation had a change of heart overnight on new releases making their way into subscription services? Unlikely. But there do appear to be rumblings of something new on the horizon.
Asked in an interview by TASS, how he’ll respond to Game Pass, Ryan said:
“There is actually news to come, but just not today. We have PlayStation Now which is our subscription service, and that is available in a number of markets.”
Up until now, PlayStation Now has always been Sony’s go-to answer to Game Pass. You can see this in how Sony halved its monthly subscription price to be competitive with the rival service, as well as moving from a streaming-only model to adding downloads.
Unfortunately, the numbers still speak for themselves. PS Now sits at only 2.2 million subscribers as of May, whereas Xbox Game Pass has shot up to 15 million. Whilst Sony boasts much better numbers in its PlayStation Plus online gaming service at 41.5 million subscribers, it’s reasonable then that Sony would want to be competitive on this front as well.
Notably, with the launch of the PS5 came the complimentary PlayStation Plus Collection. This generously includes a collection of twenty of the biggest PS4 titles available to immediately download and keep for as long as you’re subscribed. Titles include 2018’s God of War and Persona 5 with all the additional PS5 enhancements to boot. With more titles coming to said collection, is this effectively their Game Pass competitor?
Will we see an upgrade to PlayStation Now, a complimentary subscription with PlayStation Plus, an expansion on the PlayStation Plus Collection, or something new altogether? Said “news to come” can’t be too far away.
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