Today Sony officially announced their revamped version of PlayStation Plus, which will offer various tiers and new features, like a catalog of classic titles and cloud gaming. That said, there’s one thing that’s not included in Sony’s Xbox Game Pass competitor – new release first-party titles. While Microsoft adds all their games, including big ones like Halo Infinite, to Game Pass on Day 1, Sony will continue to hold back. In a new interview with GamesIndustry.biz, PlayStation boss Jim Ryan made it clear it simply wouldn’t be feasible to keep creating major blockbusters like God of War Ragnarok and Horizon Forbidden West if they were offered on PS Plus right from the get-go.
[In terms of] putting our own games into this service, or any of our services, upon their release… as you well know, this is not a road that we’ve gone down in the past. And it’s not a road that we’re going to go down with this new service. We feel if we were to do that with the games that we make at PlayStation Studios, that virtuous cycle will be broken. The level of investment that we need to make in our studios would not be possible, and we think the knock-on effect on the quality of the games that we make would not be something that gamers want.
The reality is, Sony and Microsoft are in very different places business-wise. Microsoft is in a position to use a big game like Halo Infinite to build up their subscription service. Sony, meanwhile, can’t afford to take a loss on the next God of War. That said, the games industry is ever-changing, and Ryan isn’t ruling out Day 1 PS Plus releases entirely…
The way the world is changing so very quickly at the moment, nothing is forever. Who would have said even four years ago that you would see AAA PlayStation IP being published on PC? […] So I don’t want to cast anything in stone at this stage. All I’m talking to today is the approach we’re taking in the short term. The way our publishing model works right now, it doesn’t make any sense. But things can change very quickly in this industry, as we all know.
What do you think? Will Sony eventually start sending their games straight to PS Plus? Should they? Or would it be the end of the big PlayStation blockbuster?
