It’s been over a month since PlayStation Plus Premium went live, fueling the video game industry’s shift towards cloud gaming and subscriptions. PlayStation’s game streaming schedule competes directly with Xbox Game Pass, the service that proved the concept by earning more than 25 million subscribers over the past five years, leveraging Microsoft’s vast cloud network.
As the two major console makers and the owners of huge franchises, Sony and Microsoft have paved the way for the rest of the video game market, and the transition to streaming subscriptions is no different. Here we’ll break down what they each offer and look at the industry from the cloud’s perspective.
PlayStation Plus has three tiers: Essential, Extra, and Premium. Essential costs $10 a month or $60 a year, and it’s basically the PlayStation Plus you’re used to, with three games to download each month, access to online multiplayer features, cloud storage, and discounts. PS Plus Extra costs $15 per month or $100 per year and has everything in the Essential tier plus a library of up to 400 downloadable PS4 and PS5 games.
PS Plus Premium costs $18 per month or $120 per year, adding up to 340 games from previous PlayStation consoles. This is also the tier that unlocks cloud gaming, supports over 700 titles and adds the ability to stream or download games from older eras. This tier actually replaces PlayStation Now, Sony’s often disappointing cloud gaming service that launched on PS4. With PS Plus Premium, cloud gaming is available on PS4, PS5 and PC, but not on mobile devices.
Sony
That’s a difference between Sony and Microsoft’s approach, as Xbox titles can be played on mobile devices as well as on consoles and PC. But the bigger distinction is the type of games available on each network. Sony has no plans to add major exclusive games such as pronounced or God of War Ragnarok to Plus on day one, meaning subscribers will need to purchase these titles separately if they want to play right away. On the Xbox side, Game Pass Ultimate offers a streaming library of over 300 titles, and it includes major first-party drops like Halo Infinite on release day. That’s important, considering Xbox owns influential studios, including Bethesda and id Software, and is in the process of acquiring Activision Blizzard. Xbox offering the next Doom of Elder Scrolls on day one is a bigger draw than Sony’s strayedeven if Stray is the cutest game of the year.
Xbox is the biggest proponent of cloud gaming in the console space, and with the backing of a robust network from Microsoft and years of public testing, Game Pass has set the standard when it comes to subscription services. Game Pass only has PC and console tiers that provide access to a library of over 300 downloadable games for $10 per month, while Game Pass Ultimate unlocks cloud play on PC, mobile, and Xbox consoles for $15 per month. Assuming you prepay for PS Plus Premium, that means the annual price of Game Pass Ultimate is $60 higher than Premium – which is roughly what it costs PlayStation subscribers to get one of those first-party Sony games. buy, so it’s all shocked in the end.
Aaron Souppouris/Engadget
Xbox has steadily laid the foundations for an industry unconstrained by hardware, relying on cloud gaming rather than console generations, while Sony still seems to be married to the idea of hardware cycles and more traditional game sales. Despite Sony being first with PlayStation Now, Sony is catching up to Microsoft in terms of streaming, but it still has plenty to offer in the form of classic games and new exclusives. Cloudplay is here to stay and it’s possible that other services like Steam and the Epic Games Store will follow the lead of Xbox and PlayStation in the coming years. Nintendo is bringing the back end in terms of online, cloud and anything akin to 21st century tech, but it has an unparalleled back catalog and Switch Online unlocks a number of NES, SNES and N64 games.
It’s not about one service being better than the other. This is about adapting to the new normal for video games, where your money isn’t spent on a $60 disc or a discrete download code, but instead is split between streaming services with individual purchases side by side. We’re used to this idea when it comes to TV and movies, and streaming technology is almost reliable enough to make it the standard in gaming.
Here are the new calculations we perform every month: Do I value Game Pass Ultimate more than Netflix? Or PS Plus Premium via Spotify? New subscription services appear almost weekly; have to give something.
All products recommended by Engadget have been selected by our editorial team, independent of our parent company. Some of our stories contain affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
0 Comments