Both PlayStation and Xbox now have subscription services – Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Plus Extra – offering several hundred games each for the cost of a few dollars per month and each offering some Day One launches of smaller third-party titles.
Game Pass has the advantage of being a more established entity and a central focus for Microsoft, which aims to get the service onto whatever platforms it can. For consumers, its biggest draw is Microsoft’s first-party titles launching on the service on Day One.
PlayStation Plus Extra has the advantage of Sony’s better library of exclusive games. One thing they have made clear though, is that they don’t plan to release their major first-party titles on Day One on the service.
Speaking at GI Live 2022 this past week, PlayStation’s Head of Independent Developer Initiatives Shuhei Yoshida talked about how the company views adding new titles to the service at launch and draws an interesting comparison.
He indicates Microsoft treats its first-party games like Netflix with everything going direct to streaming. Yoshida, on the other hand, compares PlayStation’s games as being more akin to movies with the biggest titles getting release windows to maximise both the prestige and profit – which in turn benefits the game’s developer:
“We believe in the premium release of titles at launch. The new PS Plus has tiers and essentially it’s like the old PS Plus, we still release two or three new games every month, and a new tier, Extra, has a catalogue of hundreds of games for people to play. For Extra, our approach [is] we like to help the publishers [with] lifecycle management.
I was managing first-party [at PlayStation] so I know that it’s like in the movies – a movie comes out at the theatre first, then goes to pay-per-view, or a subscription service, or free TV, every time generating new revenue and reaching out to a broader audience.
In the same kind of way, we believe in the premium release of a title at launch and after maybe six months, or three months, or three years, when the game’s sales come down, inclusion into this service, PS Plus Extra, can help introduce these games to new, broader audiences.
Some people might have missed these games when they came out and it’s a great chance to play and generate word-of-mouth, or if there’s DLC or a sequel going, we can help elevate interest to a broader audience about the franchise. So we are encouraging publishers to make use of these services in managing the lifecycle of each title.”
That isn’t to say all Sony titles will take that approach, with Yoshida acknowledging the success of “Stray” which released Day One on PS Plus Extra and was a title that found success adopting a day-and-date subscription release strategy.
But that’s a small indie title compared to large-scale big-budget single-player titles like “God of War Ragnarok” or “Ghost of Tsushima” – the kind of games that Sony is famous for and cost a bunch to make.
Sony is making a bigger push into the live service game arena in the coming years, which is the kind of format that arguably benefits the most from being part of a subscription service.
Source: GamesIndustry.Biz
