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Sony’s long awaited revamped service, code named Spartacus, is no longer a secret. The new PlayStation Plus is set to launch in June 2022 as a combination of PS Plus and PS Now.
It’s finally here, well almost. Sony’s long rumoured revamp service, code named Spartacus, has officially been unveiled with a release date of June 2022 via the PlayStation blog. This new all-in-one service is essentially a consolidation of Sony’s current digital services PlayStation Now and PlayStation Plus.
Sony was very early to the streaming game with the release of PlayStation Now back in 2014 after they acquired streaming company Gaikai to bolster their capabilities. Since launch, PlayStation Now has struggled to gain subscribers with the last known subscriber count at 3.2 million as of March 2021.
Meanwhile, PlayStation Plus has lead the industry in subscriptions with a total subscriber count of 48 million as of December 2021, and Sony is looking to grow that number even further with this change. It’s a move that makes sense for the company as the two services overlap when it comes to offering monthly games for customers.
The new PlayStation Plus will offer Sony flexibility in acquiring games regularly from third-party developers and offering more value for their consumers with the current 700+ games on offer at launch. While the media is pushing PlayStation Plus as a GamePass competitor, this service is not in competition with Microsoft’s offering.
PlayStation Plus will not offer day-and-date games of Sony’s first party studios, therefore it is not a GamePass competitor. The best offering fans could expect would be 3rd party day-and-date, day one of online only games as a service games, and 1-2 year post release of first party games.
Sony’s CEO Jim Ryan has reiterated that quality is at the heart of PlayStation and they can’t compromise that by launching their 1st party games in a service on day one.
The new PlayStation Plus will seek to offer more value to consumers by offering three tiers of subscriptions all under the PlayStation Plus brand. The three tiers will offer various benefits at each level. The current PlayStation Plus membership will become PlayStation Plus Essential:
PlayStation Plus Extra will provide all previous benefits from the Essential tier in addition to 400+ PlayStation 4/5 games from both first-party and third-party partners. At launch, Sony will have games such as Death Stranding, God of War, Marvel’s Spider-Man and Miles Morales, Mortal Kombat 11 and Returnal available.
PlayStation Plus Premium will provide all the benefits of the previous two tiers in addition to 340 additional games spanning across the PS1, PS2, PS3, and PSP platforms. PS3 games will only be available via streaming. Time limited game trials will also be available in this tier, offering the opportunity for gamers to try out games before they buy them.
All previous PlayStation Now members will migrate automatically to the PlayStation Plus Premium tier for the remainder of their subscription.
This is an intriguing change to Sony’s current subscription model, but it will only be a fruitful endeavour if the game catalogue is significant to back up the subscription cost. We’ll have to wait and see what games PlayStation plus will offer when it comes out in June.
Featured image via: MP1st.com
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