Sony kondigde afgelopen dag een rebranding aan van PlayStation Plus, met drie verschillende tiers en prijzen.
Vergeleken met Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass-service is er één groot verschil. PlayStation geeft niet op de dag van release toegang tot een nieuwe first party game, terwijl Microsoft dat wel doet.
Volgens PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan is dat een bewuste keuze omdat het aanbieden van games op de dag van release, een negatieve effect zou hebben op de kwaliteit van first party-games. Het geld wat wordt verdiend door verkopen wordt weer geïnvesteerd in een vervolgproject. Als games op dag 1 op PlayStation Plus zouden verschijnen, worden er minder exemplaren verkocht en is er minder om te investeren in ambitieuze nieuwe projecten.
Microsoft kan dit wel doen, want Microsoft is één van de rijkste bedrijven in de wereld met hele diepe zakken. Toch sluit Ryan het niet helemaal uit voor de toekomst.
“We feel like we are in a good virtuous cycle with the studios, where the investment delivers success, which enables yet more investment, which delivers yet more success. We like that cycle and we think our gamers like that cycle.
[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 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? We started that last year with Horizon Zero Dawn, then Days Gone, and now God of War — a hugely polished and accomplished PC version of that game. [We’ve had] great critical success and great commercial success, and everybody has made their peace with that happening and is completely at ease with it. I look back four years and think nobody would have seen that coming.
The way our publishing model works right now [putting new games straight into PS Plus] doesn’t make any sense. But things can change very quickly in this industry
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.”
