Here's How PlayStation's New Services Compare To Xbox Game Pass

mhh will the ps1 -> ps3 games still streaming only?

Regarding "PlayStation Plus Extra Vs. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate"...

GPU includes Xbox Cloud Gaming, whereas PS doesn't have directly comparable product... am I correct?

That is a big win for GPU over PSPE (if I am correct).

@antstephenson As far as I'm aware, you're correct. To get anything close to Cloud Gaming you've got to go to PS Plus Premium, and even then, it's only PS Classics from what I can tell.

@Kezelpaso

Cheers, that's what I thought... but seems weird that nobody is mentioning this difference in their comparisons of GPU and PSPE.
Almost like xcloud is getting forgotten about or its value proposition overlooked.
No big deal, but I think it's definitely worth highlighting as a difference 👍

I'm actually genuinely curious to see if Microsoft will add a third tier after seeing this. But if they do that, I don't think they'll add classic original Xbox and 360 games. I think they'll include e.g. Ubisoft+, which would be more appealing than a tier where you get to play old games.

Sony could be Microsoft's guinea pig as they observe how customers will react to a more expensive third tier.

@antstephenson I just added a small note that Extra misses out on cloud gaming (and EA Play, which is another GP win), it's defo worth mentioning!

@LtSarge Really good point, Ubi+ on there would be big.
What if they could pull something off like a premium tier that includes every single back compat Xbox/360 game? Could be another option but might be tough logistically.

@LtSarge

Or...

What if GPU comes DOWN in price, but loses EA.
And they have EA+Ubi as the extra tier(s).

Would be interesting to see how that works out.

Umm, I notice PS also shows yearly pricings on their notice.

@Kezelpaso That would be cool but yeah, probably will be tough to convince all the publishers to get on board with it. I also think considering Game Pass is all about adding new games, Ubisoft+ would be a good fit as new Ubisoft titles get added on day one to that service. So that would be in line with what makes Game Pass so appealing compared to PS+.

@antstephenson That would be a great idea as well. I wonder if Microsoft will ever get rid of Xbox Live Gold and make online play free. That way we wouldn't even need Ultimate anymore and they can just add Xbox Cloud Gaming to the base tier. Either way, I do hope that some changes will come in the future to make Game Pass even more appealing.

Not surprising. Sony/Playstation been very anti-consumer on pretty much everything.

Then act like they're doing consumers a favor for it.

@themightyant most ppl are still on Thier 3 years gp for £75 and will be for a while more ,or paying for it by rewards so just a few searches /starting up games

@themightyant I know PS Plus yearly is cheaper overall, but as you say, GP is on offer so often that essentially, that's less per year too.
This is just a quick guide to compare what each service provides each month, along with that monthly cost.

@themightyant @Kezelpaso I’m confused, is there PS4 game streaming yo PC?

I still think it’s silly that’s the highest tier option and doesn’t include mobile.

It is a great service. Especially the Premium one with PS1 and PS2 games. And the pricing is right. Good for PS owners. This is how competition gives.

Clearly gamepass just died and we should sell our consoles before the prices drop drastically....am i right?

Is the only new feature the demos or is the ability to download and play natively vs streaming for some older titles new too? I only looked into the Sony services when I was debating what system to go for before they launched but it all sounds the same as before? Did they lower prices as well?

Sony has dropped the simplicity of their nomenclature and these plans seem a tough sale except Essential because it's the cheapest way to get online. Even Nintendo's poor value offerings look a tad better now.

@Kooky_Daisuke ps used to do something similar but it was years ago

@mousieone

My understanding... which might not be correct... Is that PS Remote Play means you can play on PC or on Mobile, but... your device has to be on the same network as your PS.
I'm more than happy to be corrected on this 🙂

One thing worth mention is that in Ultimate you get PC-games too inkl. EA-play games! That is a big selling point for me!

@themightyant no kidding. But hey the pricing is Crystal clear.

@antstephenson they’re charging for remote play?

Sony had the blueprint to match or surpass GPU, and they still failed to do that. 🤦‍♂️
I'm glad they're rolling the services into one, but they should've made the premium features part of the extra tier to really one-up GPU. Oh and not including the 1st party releases is baffeling.

And PS3 is STILL STREAMING-ONLY! 😵

Ugh, Sony... 🤦‍♂️

If Nightmare Creatures is available to buy on its own then I'm buying it. Randomly popped into my head last week and now I want to play it. Played the demo years ago and I think I played it on a chipped ps1 once. I miss ps1/Saturn days.

hmm, it ended up being exactly what people thought it was going to be. the streaming only stuff is unfortunate. i would much prefer to have been able to download the games. but, it's pretty much what i thought it would be.

@mousieone

I don't think they charge for it (ps remote play)
All the info I see on it is a bit vague or contradictory... some places say you have to be on the same network as your PS, whereas others say you can play from anywhere in the world. I think not all games work with remote play either.
To be honest, it all looks a bit of a faff for limited functionality... Xcloud (though not perfect and only available as part of GPU) looks a much better proposition.

I dont care about day 1 drops. Mostly just want to know what older games can i play and can i buy any individually as well as if they will be adding additional ones in the future

Just want to add that having cloud for mobile is fine, but honestly the best feature of cloud is streaming to console. Allowing Xbone owners to play next gen, and allowing both gens to try games instantly can't be undersold. And streaming to console actually plays much better than mobile anyway.

There's a "fourth" tier, for countries without PS Now.

PlayStation Plus Deluxe (Select Markets): For markets without cloud streaming, PlayStation Plus Deluxe will be offered at a lower price compared to Premium, and includes a catalog of beloved classic games from the original PlayStation, PS2 and PSP generations to download and play, along with time-limited game trials. Benefits from Essential and Extra tiers are also included. Local pricing will vary by market.

For me its simple, no day one first party games, no deal. I’ll stat with the base service

Shouldn't it be;

PS Essential - Xbox Gold
PS Extra - Game Pass
PS Premium - GP Ultimate.

Does the Sony model have pc support? I think ps now is on pc. That’s where I think Xbox wins. Day one also and cloud streaming with touch controls: this news isn’t going to bring me back into the Sony ecosystem. But it’s great for people just getting into gaming. That’s where both services are fantastic. If I was young and or a parent both services are fantastic

@Richnj No, because Game Pass doesn't include online play/gold. It felt unfair to compare Game Pass to Extra, and rightly so because extra is a lot more money!
At this point nothing from Sony really compares to standard Game Pass - That was PS Now!

@raftos If/when Sony fully details those markets, I'll add that info in. For now, it feels a bit pointless.

Would love to see Nintendo have a response to this. Their service is so bad and there's so much opportunity to offer something like this...

@Kezelpaso But then wouldn't it feel unfair to compare Essential to GP when the two services are quite different in features? One is an online service, the other is a games service.

You can straight compare Essential and Gold.

Why not just note that Sony has nothing that is comparable to GP basic?

@Richnj I do compare Essential to Gold...it's right there in the first breakdown.

Sony was never going to offer its exclusives day one and I don't blame them as they sell millions and have some of the biggest budgets and advertising in gaming, maybe will include them 3 months after release and release on pc after a year which is a sound strategy.

But overall for the price which is cheaper than gamepass this isnt a bad service especially for their first attempt at fixing it and will hopefully improve on the future. Also great for those who want to play classics games

Its not bad, its about what I expected from Sony at this stage in their business model. Lets be honest, they were 'never' going to give away their own 'premium' SP games that they can sell for £70 for a 'low' monthly fee. Maybe they'll add [some of] those 'Live Service' games day 1 as they 'benefit' more with higher player counts and more likely to buy 'additional' content to offset sales losses.

Sony are too fixated on 'Sales' as they want to have #1 selling games, #1 selling consoles etc. MS don't really 'care' how you choose to play- hence all their games are available 'everywhere' (except PS/Switch) and much more interested in player engagement. They'd rather have 20m players and 'no' sales than selling a few million to be top of the charts globally for a few weeks at most but Sony seem to want 'chart' success most.

This is pretty much what I expected right now, not to say things won't change a 'few years' on from now, maybe if/when Sony can 'catch' up with Streaming/cloud based gaming. There is going to come a time when its not sustainable to build 'millions' of relatively cheap local hardware and distribute 'globally', than building 'hundreds' of much 'higher' spec cloud based processing power and stream games with significantly higher quality Visuals, AI, Destruction etc. Also not having to distribute and store LARGE game files on 'local' hardware will mean that games will not be limited by 'weak' commercial hardware and their 'storage' capability.

Spend $500-$1k on a 'console' to play 'scaled' down versions of 'some' games (others will still be using the cloud to compute AI, Physics etc, store the 'entire' world on and stream the area you are in etc and others will be purely 'cloud' based and streamed to console) but the 'best' version is the 'streamed' version as the power of the cloud is vastly superior. Its going to be like trying to play MSFS on a XB1S - the only option to play the latest, greatest AAA games will be via streaming - maybe even direct to a TV display (no hardware required - other than some controller). Nintendo may well keep making hardware, as they do, but I think that 'streaming' will be where the latest AAA games will be releasing as they are too 'big' to distribute, too complex to run without the cloud processing power etc.

@Kezelpaso In the section titled PS Essential vs Game Pass...

Why not just PS+ Essential vs Gold?, then a separate section for GP and Sony's non-answer to it?.

@armondo36 only ps3 games will be streaming only, psp, ps1, ps2, ps4, and ps5 games will also be able to download to the console

@Richnj Because the guide is about PS Plus vs. Game Pass, that's what people want to know about. I titled that section based on that, but once it's explained, it's clearly closer to Gold, hence the summary.
Speaking of which, I wonder if that Xbox ditching gold rumour will crop up again soon...

You won’t beat GPU and that’s that, as long as we get a good stream of new AAA titles. That’s my only issue with Microsoft at the minute, lacking off such titles that really ping that top AAA quality in all areas.
Since release of series consoles only FH5 has that ping that leads in a game that way.
And this year maybe Starfield.
Zelda BOTW2 just got delayed to Spring 2023 so anything can happen in this industry, which for me is going through some good change but some really disconcerting times, games releasing wise and quality wise.

@UltimateOtaku91

Agree . Also really don't think 1st party titles should be day one, we would see a drop in quality. Sony don't have the money too throw around like Microsoft and apart from horizon most Microsoft exclusives haven't been anything special , found more gems in Indy games

But hoping star field and later games meet the quality of horizon.

@suikoden yeah exactly Microsoft make treble what sony earn just from their pc software business lol and starfield will be amazing (hopefully) as its being done by Bethesda's main studio, and starfield is the kind of game that has a massive budget, you can tell whilst playing certain games which have big budgets and honestly can't see subscription services being worth it for them but time will tell

@UltimateOtaku91 @suikoden And yet I can’t help but think a service like this might have actually saved Sony from the controversy around GT7 or the fact MLB The Show is one of the top selling games even being on GP, I dunno just me I guess.

There’s a nice middle ground that could be like a 3 month window. I just think it’s short sighted not to consider it for some of the titles they have.

@mousieone

They should be added in a few months after sales drop but still think none at day one unless it's games that aren't triple A.

@mousieone yeah I'd say 3-5 months and they will be added and then added to pc a year later especially after the success of God of war and horizon zero dawn on steam.

Jim Ryan said today that new releases won't be added "at launch" which is vague but says its not viable, so could be that sony may set a target for each game before it hits the new service such as selling a certain amount of copies or not until it recovers its development costs etc

At this point I only play Gran Turismo 7 on a PS4 Pro everything else I get on Xbox. There is nothing here that is going to change that or increase my time on PlayStation.

It's interesting to see that the Premium service and almost new services are far cheaper then Game Pass Ultimate, if you pay for them yearly. That's something Microsoft coupe look at I think, offer a year subscription for less.
Otherwise no Game Pass still comfortably beats Sonys confusing competing product, it also seems pretty confused on how to price the different tiers too. No doubt Sony fans will be praising all this though as the best thing ever.

I see this 3 tier system overly convoluted and lesser value than GamePass Ultimate.

Issues I see in the logistics of it all:

*If you go monthly, the 2nd tier is more expensive than the third tier by far.

*No day one games from Sony mean that by the time games hit the service I already likely owned the ones I wanted to play.

*For some crazy reason none of these tiers offer access to Sony first party games on PC (mind you, the list might be too small right now but we all know that list will continue to grow.)

*Classic games sound too vague, need a list of games. What classic games that are not first party can possibly end up in the service? Plus I am still cranky at the PS2 classic games on PS4 program being abandoned rather quickly, with practically only Rockstar games doing any significant contributions. I bought every single one of those games, and was so hopeful of more. I would not be shocked if this is a similar one-shot library that does not move forward past launch.

Overall, GamePass Ultimate gives us classic games (as many as they could add,) PC Games (not only first party) and day one launch games. Not to mention EA Play for as long as it is part of the service.

Dollar for Dollar, there is no questioning that GPU is still the champion, even without having a yearly discount, IMO.

@uptownsoul give it time, I'm sure the usual You Tube Sony fans will be raving about it.

@Kezelpaso Yeah, just saw the playstation blog of my place, and it looks not bad. US$ 78/year. Sony games are really expensive here, so it all depends If it will have first party games, even if months, or a year, later. If yes, I may buy a PS5 in 2023.

@Tharsman GPU is free with rewards points. Takes 5 mins a day for free game pass and two $50 cards a year.

I would consider myself more of a PlayStation fan than an Xbox one even though I am a fan of both, and I'd consider myself to be pretty disappointed. The one thing I was hoping for was being able to download PS3 games since I stupidly got rid of my PS3 a while back, and they still refuse to put in the work to make them downloadable. I know the Cell processor was extremely complicated, but I find it hard to believe that they couldn't get it to work on the PS5 if they really wanted to. This offers nothing for me to consider paying more than I already do, unlike Game Pass.

This being the disappointment I feared may eventually lead me to switch back to Xbox some day. I'm not going to do any crazy knee jerk reaction like that right now, but you never know in time.

I just see this as apples to oranges comparisons. Really the only real comparison is gold to essentials. The other comparisons are apples to oranges.

When I look at my PS Plus and PS Now subscriptions today, I don't see a lot of good options going forward. I will probably just skip PS subscriptions going forward. I don't see any as truly competing with GamePass. To me, the kicker with GamePass Ultimate is PC games + First Party games on day one. PS subscriptions come no where close to the value of GamePass Ultimate.

In the end all the new PS subscriptions are third party tier 2 games (mostly) and they want you to pay for games you already only, monthly now. I don't know why they are cheering up old PS games, on XB if you own them and they are playable on the latest XB they are free to continue playing. Just like Sony did the "just insert disc to play a game", MS should be doing the same for BC games.

@lolwhatno Microsoft had to include day one titles due to lack of sales last gen, without day one exclusives then no one would be subscribing to gamepass, but sony aren't in that situation and have no need or pressure to include new exclusives day one which is a good sign that they are in an healthy position at the moment

No day one games and the fact we already at no extra cost get backwards compatibility without streaming the games on Xbox makes this seem too expensive for me.

It probably would of landed better if gamepass didn't come out years ago. But in a world with gamepass, it comes across as a bad service with bad pricing

For me, the only real value is in the PlayStation Plus Extra tier.

I'd be happy to pay £10.99 for 1 month to play Returnal, then cancel and wait until another decent game hits.

Obviously with no day one games, that puts me off paying the £83.99 yearly option, as you have no idea what is going to get added to the service.

For the players? Meh.

Being stubborn for day 1 releases?

This Ben guy has had recently the worst takes if I'm being honest.
From GaaS to Harry Potter to this? I hope I am allowed to say that.

Why do xbox gamers want ps plus game pass more than playstation gamers? It's funny to me.

We want traditional gaming. If the service sucks, carry on consuming gaming how it was consumed from ps1-ps4. Nothing wrong with that.

I want Starfield to compete for goty. Not compete for gamepass subs. If that makes sense. So no day 1 is perfect. I wouldn't buy either services. If the games drop in quality, I won't pay for the game. Simple. I won't pay for a service to justify its mediocrity. I'll just expect third party to carry gaming (and half of them don't even produce quality).

@GuyinPA75 Funny how we all forgot MS attempt to jack up the xbox gold price, which is worst than any $70 price or a service not being good enough.

Literally nobody writes about it. So lets keep both in check.

I just bought another 12 months of Game Pass Ultimate for 4p short of a hundred quid, which is over 30 quid less then paying monthly thanks to CD Keys. Now IMO that beats the crap out of Sonys new Premium service.

@S1ayeR74 in US you could let GPU expire and not renew then buy 2 years of basic xbox live, and 1 month of GPU, activate the two yeas first then the GPU will fully upgrade you to GPU for all 2 years...135$ for 2 years of GPU....

@Kezelpaso dont pay montly for gpu... let your sub expire and not auto renew. BUY 2 YEARS of gold, and 1 month of GPU, 135 USD... activate the 2 years of gold first, then the GPU month and it will all be upgraded to gpu on a 1-1 basis aka if you do this youll have 25 months of GPU for 135$ comes out to 5.40$ a month for gamepass ultimate

@Blessed_Koz Yeah, this is a great way to stack GPU right now and is how I do it. Eventually, I'd expect them to plug that up though, maybe they could introduce a yearly GPU sub to compete with Plus.

@Blessed_Koz Not easy to do in the U.K. if your an existing subscriber. I’ve heard if that trick before but for new subscribers.

@S1ayeR74 maybe i. The uk it doesnt work but i can guarantee it does in the usa as i did it within last two months. you have to let your sub expire for a day the system then thinks your new again... just cant use the 1$ offer if thats still a thing.