As if Sony announced they'd be bringing PS1 and PS2 games to PS Plus but didn't bother telling us what any of them are.
I don't really care about this thing. It's just PS Plus and PS Now together with some extras. I don't care about Gamepass or anything like that. My backlog is monstrous. The last thing I need is a subscription. Maybe one day.
As someone who has never been tempted to go with PS Now I can't see that the middle tier would offer anything else as, unless I'm missing something, it just seems like a repackaging of plus and now together. And as someone who has lived through and experienced the previous generations I honestly don't think there would be more than a few PS1-3 games that would tempt me to return to. I don't really want to play the stuff I did or didn't play 10 or 20 years ago!
So for me it looks like I'll be subbing for the lowest tier, paying for the privilege of occasional gaming online and hoping I get enough games from the service to justify the yearly cost.
“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
@Sorteddan The middle tier could entice me if they're going to be putting on PS5 games a year or so after release but it depends what will be on there that I haven't bought already. It might be better once more games start coming out for the console and there are some I pass on to start with.
I just remembered that PS Video Pass is a thing here in Poland (included in PS Plus) and they just added some stuff to it (like Blade Runner 2049), so that could definitely become a part of the sub globally one day (the app itself still sucks though)
@Voltan Personally I don’t think adding movie access will enhance PS+ for me. I guess if it’s robust enough then it might mean that I can discontinue one of my other streaming services, but I have oodles of movie access already. I think I have Blade Runner on at least one if not two other streaming services. I think that’s why most of us were hoping more for some anime (Crunchyroll/Funimation) service inclusion since that’s unique content we can’t get otherwise.
Which brings up a point: I’ve actually noticed that lately the movie/TV streaming services are overlapping more and more. I have West Side Story, Free Guy, and others on two of my services.
And I think this might underscore an issue that will pop up in the PS+ vs GP world we are entering — there will be some redundancy in the third party content, I suspect. What it creates is an issue where some people who own both consoles will have to choose which service to subscribe to and which to just have for game purchases. I’m close to the point of canceling some of my TV streaming if overlapping content become more common, not to mention there is just simply not enough hours in the day to consume it all.
I don’t know how third party game deals will work, and it’ll be interesting to see the arms race that may ensue. Each service will be vying for exclusive content to set them apart, otherwise there is just repetition between the two. Some exclusivity has already been arranged — For Xbox it’ll be Bethesda and Activision access, and for Sony it’ll be Bungie and Sony Studio content. Some of the first party games will available on both consoles but likely will be “free” through the service on their home console and paid on the other. Then the third parties will align perhaps; you can see Square Enix currently heavily aligning with Sony for example. Regardless, I’m already seeing people who have GP say they aren’t going to sub to another service and vice versa.
@Th3solution I don't disagree, I think I used the app once since it's been available - still, it's probably better to have access to some movies and tv shows than not have it, if they're not charging extra for it
I also agree that Crunchyroll would be much more appealing, even though I'm not a huge anime fan myself.
@Voltan True. Something is better than nothing. Usually.
As I was thinking about this potential issue— the possible overlap in third party games included on both the PS and XB services— I wondered how each company could distinguish itself to entice someone to play on their service instead of the competitor’s, I thought about my experience lately with movies. Bear with me as I pontificate and compare movie streaming with video game streaming:
1) So in the case of Blade Runner 2049, I watched it on HBO Max a couple months ago instead of somewhere else, and clearly the reason at the time was because it got there first. So timed exclusivity and especially day 1 access is key. We see the gaming industry has been leveraging this tactic for years. (FF7R, Rise of the TR, Cuphead, the Yakuza games, Hades, Death’s Door, etc, etc…) The console that gets the game first has a leg up sometimes to create a ‘feeling’ that the game ‘belongs’ in that ecosystem.
2) When I watched West Side Story, I watched it on Disney+. Why didn’t I watch it on HBO? It was available there too. Well, simply put, I didn’t realize it was on HBO until later and I already seen it splashed on my screen over and over on D+. And the fact is I just spend more time on D+ than on HBO. So it was natural that when the mood struck I just clicked on it in D+ first.
So keeping a customer in your ecosystem more often will sway them to stay there for non-exclusive content. Also advertising and getting content highlighted and in their face is effective to have them consume it in your ecosystem. Look for MS and Sony to leverage this by trying to keep your eyes on their storefront more often and the company that wins the battle of advertising is going to have a leg up.
3) I went to start watching Free Guy last week (I actually didn’t get very far into and got distracted) but when I started to watch it I watched it on HBOMax instead of D+, despite knowing it was over there. Why? I think it was subconsciously because the HBO app is a little cleaner and UI is simpler and slightly easier to navigate. The D+ front page sometimes looks like a rainbow of colors was vomited all over the screen and it’s just really busy with all their first party stuff and the watchlist is easier to find in the HBO app. So the quality of the UI and the smoothness of the technical aspect counts. If Sony wants to compete in the streaming space, they need to have their applications running as good or better than Microsoft’s. Servers being down or clunky performance will kill any momentum to keep people from just playing the game over on the other console.
———
Now there is one last part of the puzzle that games have which movies don’t (and I think it would be interesting if movie streaming adopted a similar mechanic) and that is the trophy/achievement systems. Many players choose where to play a multiplatform game based on whether they want the trophies or the achievements for their gamer score/PS level. I think that’s really key. Sony would be wise to implement some kind of reward system for trophies. I know that’s a quagmire which is difficult to tread through because of the lack of balancing amongst games and the difficulty of their trophies, but maybe just in the multiplatform games they could give tangible rewards (like PS store credit or points that add extra months to the subscription) for getting certain trophies on cross-platform games. Imagine if you could earn a free month of PS+ if you got the platinum for Guardians of the Galaxy or Resident Evil Village. You’d choose to play it on PlayStation instead of Xbox if there was a chance for that. (When I say “you” I’m meaning the collective “you” of course, not you specifically)
I think Xbox already has some kind of rudimentary reward system, and Sony does too with its credit card or something, but it needs to really be fleshed out and simplified, in my opinion.
Just some thoughts. 😄 Sorry for the long boring market analysis.
@Thrillho
Yeah I guess than it comes down to a question of best value. If there were say 5 ps5 games you actually wanted to play - all retailing for minimum £15-20 then it would make perfect sense to pay an extra £30 for a year in a higher tier. Though if you are buying physical then you will also get some return if you part exchange/trade in and the fact that the retail price tends to drop when games are included in such services. So makes it difficult to do actual comparisons, and even if you could they would have probably have changed by the time you'd completed the first game!
I wasn't trying to suggest the new tiers are a bad thing or won't be exactly what some people are looking for, I was just stating why I thought it wouldn't be for me.
“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
The 'new' PS+ is more about getting 'more' PS+ subscribers to pay 'more' for their Subscription.Its clear that the vast majority of the '50m' or so PS+ Subscribers are not willing to pay Sony 'more' to add PSNow - considering its only enticed about 2m to sign up.
If they get '20%' of PS+ subscribers to 'sign' up to the mid tier, for the more 'recent' releases, that's 10m paying an 'extra' £4 - or an extra £40m a month Sony are getting in just by refreshing their 'existing' services which over a year adds up to nearly half a Billion every year.
Its NOT the same service as Game Pass, but Sony would need to change their entire business model to offer a direct competitor - something MS did after their disastrous XB1 launch and subsequent management changes that led to the change in business model. Sony's is the traditional 'Sales' model, they want you to buy their 'hardware', buy their games etc. The Game Pass model is detrimental to that business model so Sony are not [currently] going to give you $70 games day & date.
MS's business model is more like MS of 'old', as a software company. They want their 'software', whether that's Windows, Office etc or MSFS, Gears, Starfield etc in as many peoples hands as possible and would rather have 20m+ access their software than sell '4-5m' (average) over its lifetime. That's why 'every' game they have some influence over (as Developer and/or Publisher) will be 'offered' on Game Pass (and still 'sold' to those without Subscriptions **OR** to those who want to buy/keep - like collectors editions etc). Its not about 'sales', its about 'reach'
From MS/Developers point of view, every 'Software' is a store front and its 'selling' you something - whether its the story, characters, game-play - something that you want to 'spend' your valuable leisure time in their Software and/or getting you in that 'store' to spend 'money' - either buying the game (to keep, to support the devs etc because you enjoyed the 'time' you spent) or buying 'extras', like DLC, Cosmetics, in-game currency boosters etc to enhance your valuable time in that world - no obligation to spend time or money, but every game is competing just for your time and if you 'like' the look of it, you can try and 'decide' if you want to spend more than just your time...
Obviously this does benefit some types of games more than others. Live service/online games tend to have more additional content for sale as people want to look more unique and benefit more from 'higher' player numbers to fill online lobbies, reducing ping and waiting times, benefit from 'friends' having access with no barriers - You can all play day 1 together regardless of who actually bought it. I can see Sony maybe adding some Live Service/Online based games on Day 1on their revised service because it 'benefits' the game more than sales numbers.
I don't know why people 'expected' Sony to essentially change their 'entire' business model to compete with MS's Game Pass. At the end of the day, if you own a Playstation, you need PS+ to play all the content in any game and its up to you to decide if you want to give Sony more money a month for their services. It doesn't matter whether 'Xbox' has a 'better/worse' value service, it just matters whether Sony's 'new' service offers Playstation gamers 'better' value than they had before. You can't play Game Pass on Playstation and won't offer the 'same' games list regardless so the only thing PS gamers need to ask themselves is which, if any, of the tiers Sony offer is 'right' for them and does it offer them 'better' value than they were getting before. Paying £4 extra for PS4/5 era games - even if they are not 'new' releases may well be better than paying just for PS+, and better value than having to pay for PSNow when you aren't interested in 'retro' games...
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Because of something I saw on Reddit, I went back to the big announcement blog post and confirmed that while it starts by saying they would be introducing the new tiers globally in June, another part of it says that it would be launched in some Asian countries in June and other regions would follow later.
Welp, let’s hope it’s not “several months later”.
Btw, I can already see how “happy” people will be on the first Tuesday of June, when the new service doesn’t launch in their region yet.
@Voltan My PS Now is timed perfectly to expire on June 6th lol. I doubt I will be renewing it or subbing to the Premium tier of Plus as I'm not interested in the retro stuff you get with it.
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@Voltan they also say most territories will be migrated over by the end of the first half of 2022, which is June. So while it may not be the first Tuesday like you mentioned, I highly doubt NA and EU would be waiting any more than a couple weeks.
This hasn’t always been the case but I currently play enough online games to keep my PS Plus subscription at least until they stop requiring it for online
But honestly I’ve played enough of the PS Plus games to consider it worth it anyway - and I’ll definitely consider upgrading too, depending on the library of the higher tiers.
I plan to keep but not upgrade. As a PS5 PS Plus user, I can always fall back on the free PS4 Classic and PS Plus monthly games if I run out of something to play. I do a lot of online surveys and hoard PS Plus dollars so I never really pay out of pocket outside of the time used for doing surveys.
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