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Sony’s PlayStation Game Pass Reveal Could be Imminent as PS Now Subscriptions Change to PS+

Draugoth

Gold Member
Sony has begun converting active PlayStation Now subscriptions into PlayStation Plus. According to multiple users in regions with PS Now support, their subscriptions no longer say PlayStation Now . Instead, when they check their account, these services are listed as PlayStation Plus and have the same expiration dates as their previous PS Now subscriptions.



sNyqXiY.jpeg.webp
 

AV

We ain't outta here in ten minutes, we won't need no rocket to fly through space
I hope it's good, I'm just ready for it to be incredibly underwhelming.

Old game streaming just isn't gonna be good enough if that's what it is. The old farts playing old games don't want to play them with input latency.
 

JLB

Banned
PS+ and PS Now = 50 million subs. Checkmate Game Pass.

I dont think Sony is going to compulsively raise the cost of the service to 50 million people. That will be a savage movement. Now, if it works, it would be a master play.
 

AV

We ain't outta here in ten minutes, we won't need no rocket to fly through space
It's nothing like Gamepass but ok

Not yet, it's not. The best we have to go on is a Bloomberg report and they're hardly reliable given the constant "Switch Pro" articles they insist on pumping out.
 

AV

We ain't outta here in ten minutes, we won't need no rocket to fly through space
Only way it gets close to gamepass is day1. Otherwise, its EA play service with online service added.

What you're describing is not "nothing like Game Pass" though, is it? It's just not as good, which is exactly what PS Now already was - a not-as-good Game Pass.

I imagine their new service will have day one, just not for the £70 titles like Horizon and GT7.
 

JaksGhost

Member
They might want to check their account through the actual PlayStation because mine converted to that too but they were still separate subscriptions when viewed on my PS5. My PSNow and PS+ expired on different dates and I tested it out by letting my PSNow lapse yesterday and now I don’t have access even though my PS+ expires in 2023.
 
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SSfox

Member
The reason you buy it anyway is the reason why they won't lower the price.
That's cool still. They drop some good games time to time and also at least Sony won't try to force the double price like Microsoft tried to with Xbox Live Gold.
 
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The_Mike

I cry about SonyGaf from my chair in Redmond, WA
That's cool still. They drop some good games time to time and also at least Sony won't try to force the double price like Microsoft tried to with Xbox Live Gold.
They'd force additional 10 euro prices for next gen games and for some upgrades, both of them thinks in money and tries to push the envelope for how they can squeeze money from you.

Also, Sony squeezing money by selling gt cars to 40 dollars
 
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Fbh

Member
That's weird.

I'd expect any new service they introduce to come at an extra cost. Don't think they'll just give you access to tons of extra games on Ps+ at no additional cost.


They should add an Online only sub service for like 20$ per year. Personally only reason i still sub PS+ is only for Online play.

Which is probably why they won't. They already have you paying $60 a year, they have no incentive to let you only pay $20 instead
 

yurinka

Member
I dont think Sony is going to compulsively raise the cost of the service to 50 million people. That will be a savage movement. Now, if it works, it would be a master play.
That's weird.

I'd expect any new service they introduce to come at an extra cost. Don't think they'll just give you access to tons of extra games on Ps+ at no additional cost.

The new PS Plus (codenamed Spartacus) is supposed to have 3 tiers:
  • Small one with the same pricing (according to Grubb), name and content (according to Bloomberg) than the current PS Plus. So it's fair to assume these exisiting almost 50M Plus subbers will be moved to this tier at no extra cost.
  • Intermediate tier, that would add to the current Plus hundreds of downloadable games. Seems that they are the downloadable games from PS Now, so would be similar to the base Gamepass tier. According to Grubb it's going to be $3/month more expensive than the normal PS Plus tier (on a single month, I assume to get a year will be cheaper) so I assume they'll offer an optional upgrade.
  • The top tier, that would include PS Plus, PS Now (cloud gaming + download), extended demos of new games. According to Grubb its cost would be smaller than the current Plus+Now combined, $6/month more expensive than Plus (I assume they'll have 1 year cheaper version). PS Now according to Bloomberg would dissapear as a separate service with the Spartacus release, so very likely they'll convert your remaining Now months to this tier at no extra cost.
According to Bloomberg they'll add hundreds of games to PS Now to the almost a thousand that already are there. In addition to add games from the current platforms supported by Now (PS2, PS3, PS4), they now would add PS1, PSP and in the near future PS5. According to Sony they'll expand Now to phones, tablets and tv soonish, so I assume would be this year, probably at the same time they release Spartacus.

All 3 tiers would be part of a new PS Plus, so I assume the expiring date of both your Plus and Now would now would be the same. I assume they are implementing it right now so some parts of the website went temporally weird as part of this migration.
 
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Sony has begun converting active PlayStation Now subscriptions into PlayStation Plus. According to multiple users in regions with PS Now support, their subscriptions no longer say PlayStation Now . Instead, when they check their account, these services are listed as PlayStation Plus and have the same expiration dates as their previous PS Now subscriptions.



sNyqXiY.jpeg.webp


Yesterday when I checked, I got the same information on mine as above, with both expiration date listed as 5-12-2025. My PS Now sub was supposed to expire on 11/27/2022, while my Plus sub expires 5/12/2025. I just checked again, and today I got this information instead (attached picture below). My subscription information is now back to the correct one. There was no way Sony was going to give me an additional 4 years of PS Now.

8TJsvRz.png
 
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MacReady13

Member
I hope it's good, I'm just ready for it to be incredibly underwhelming.

Old game streaming just isn't gonna be good enough if that's what it is. The old farts playing old games don't want to play them with input latency.
Let us purchase these old games outright and download them. Why is that so hard to understand?
 

Yoboman

Member
They really just need to flood it with PS4 games and give PS1 and PS2 BC through emulation and it will be a really good service.

Put in some select PS5 games, maybe through the monthly highlight games they currently do on PS Plus

PS3 BC would be great but I think we all understand that emulation won't ever really work to an consumer grade acceptable level
 

Roxkis_ii

Member
I think it's so wrong that people keep calling it 'Gamepass competitor' when it's clearly not going to be. Even Sony isn't calling it a Gamepass competitor.

They are just going to improve the PS+ service. That's what it is. Why do everyone keep calling it a Gamepass competitor?
I get the feeling that it's Xbox fans who need Sony to make a gamepass competitor to feel validated.

Instead of being a desperation move, it's now innovative.
 
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mitch1971

Member
I think it's so wrong that people keep calling it 'Gamepass competitor' when it's clearly not going to be. Even Sony isn't calling it a Gamepass competitor.

They are just going to improve the PS+ service. That's what it is. Why do everyone keep calling it a Gamepass competitor?
Until we get the official name for it, then people are going to use a familar name that sums up an upgraded version of the platforms basic offering to a better alternative, een if it's not going to be on parity with the competition.. In the same way playstation owners probably called their version of psplus 'gold' until the name was formed, even though they didn't know what the playstion package was going to include.
 

93xfan

Banned
Until we get the official name for it, then people are going to use a familar name that sums up an upgraded version of the platforms basic offering to a better alternative, een if it's not going to be on parity with the competition.. In the same way playstation owners probably called their version of psplus 'gold' until the name was formed, even though they didn't know what the playstion package was going to include.
PlayStation Minus
 

Esca

Member
Im interested to see what they do. I have both ps+ and psnow as of now and look forward to see how things change. I like psnow. It is cheap and fills those pockets between releases and filling a random pitch for certain types of games
 

NickFire

Member
Please let the end game be free multiplayer going forward with existing PS+ converting to a cheaper version of what is now PS Now (or given the option for PS+ refund by way of wallet credit). Or just anything that does not involve more expensive entryways to multiplayer.
 

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
I get the feeling that it's Xbox fans who need Sony to make a gamepass competitor to feel validated.

Instead of being a desperation move, it now innovative.
That and/or a group of people who just do not understand how things would actually work in the business world. I don't want to talk down a company or its strategy with this commentt, but let's look at it realistically from Sony's POV:

- PlayStation is on first position, while Xbox is on the last.
- PS+ has almost 50 million subscribers, while Gamepass has 25 million subscribers.
- PS+ is profitable, while the Gamepass model still hasn't proved itself to be self-sustainable and profitable in the long term.

Considering the above, there is 0 reason why Sony would want to create a Gamepass when Microsoft itself hasn't been able to prove the success of this model even after 5 years.
 

THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
What you're describing is not "nothing like Game Pass" though, is it? It's just not as good, which is exactly what PS Now already was - a not-as-good Game Pass.

I imagine their new service will have day one, just not for the £70 titles like Horizon and GT7.

Errr, then it's not really day one and we are back to ps now with a shiney coat of paint,
a new name and some old emulated games.
 

EDMIX

Member
They can give PS Now for free with Plus and I still probably wouldn't use it lol

Even for free...I just don't see me caring about streaming games, like a few stated, this could be a glitch, this also could be confirmation that the rumor is true about that new service.
 

Omali

Member
They can give PS Now for free with Plus and I still probably wouldn't use it lol

Even for free...I just don't see me caring about streaming games, like a few stated, this could be a glitch, this also could be confirmation that the rumor is true about that new service.
A big portion of PS Now games are downloadable.

 

MrFunSocks

Banned
With this whole “spartacus” thing, how is it any different in any way to what PS+ and PS Now already are?

Unless they’re offering first party games on day one like game pass, how is it any more like game pass than what they already have?
 

MrFunSocks

Banned
Please let the end game be free multiplayer going forward with existing PS+ converting to a cheaper version of what is now PS Now (or given the option for PS+ refund by way of wallet credit). Or just anything that does not involve more expensive entryways to multiplayer.
Sony (and Microsoft) are very unlikely to just throw away the hundreds of millions (billion+ maybe?) of dollars that they make literally at zero cost by charging to play online. It’s the biggest margin profit in their portfolios.
 

THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
That and/or a group of people who just do not understand how things would actually work in the business world. I don't want to talk down a company or its strategy with this commentt, but let's look at it realistically from Sony's POV:

- PlayStation is on first position, while Xbox is on the last.
- PS+ has almost 50 million subscribers, while Gamepass has 25 million subscribers.
- PS+ is profitable, while the Gamepass model still hasn't proved itself to be self-sustainable and profitable in the long term.

Considering the above, there is 0 reason why Sony would want to create a Gamepass when Microsoft itself hasn't been able to prove the success of this model even after 5 years.

- conveniently forgetting the xbox gold subs
- first or last, Sony can innovate and stay competitive or lose market share. You don't stay on top by sitting on your hands.
- Gamepass is already breaking even, it's all gravy from here
- Subscription based models take years to cultivate and get to profit stages
- Provides consistent cash flows that indivual games can't guarantee
- Prevents competitors from chipping away at thier user base by offering a better value
- Keeps players busy and active in the PlayStation ecosystem, leads to add on sales

So there is a lot more than zero reason to consider doing this.
 

Kagey K

Banned
With this whole “spartacus” thing, how is it any different in any way to what PS+ and PS Now already are?

Unless they’re offering first party games on day one like game pass, how is it any more like game pass than what they already have?
The middle tier is literally just PS+ and PsNow combined.

The top tier offers "trials" and classic games, according to the rumors.
 

MrFunSocks

Banned
The middle tier is literally just PS+ and PsNow combined.

The top tier offers "trials" and classic games, according to the rumors.
So pretty much zero changes other than adding timed trials to PS Now. Don’t really understand the hype in that case.
 
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