Sony's expanded PlayStation Plus service will offer hundreds of games, including recent hits, for a flat monthly fee when it launches in the United States, Europe, and Japan in June.
Sony’s revamp of its PlayStation subscription service is a major step toward levelling the playing field with Microsoft’s rival Game Pass, although holding back new releases may dampen enthusiasm, analysts say.
Sony is widely seen as leading in the console war, selling 17 million PlayStation 5 units even as chip shortages hit production, but has been under pressure to respond to the growth of Netflix-style game subscription services.combines the current PlayStation Plus, which has 48 million subscribers and offers online gaming and only a few free games each month, with PlayStation Now, which has 3.2 million users and a library of games to download and stream.
Given the high cost of developing new games, analysts had raised concerns that pressure to bundle more content with subscriptions may eat into profit at Sony’s coveted games unit.“I think this move should improve margins, as more gamers will be driven to higher-cost subscriptions,” said Piers Harding-Rolls, head of games research at Ampere Analysis.
Microsoft has gained an early lead in subscriptions, accounting for 60% of the games subscriptions in North America and Europe, compared with 7% for Sony, according to Ampere Analysis. Subscriptions make up only 4% of total gaming spending.“PlayStation believes it is smarter for them and for third-party publishers to put older games into the subscription plan so that new games can maximize their revenue potential during their launch windows,” said IDC’s Ward.
Cloud gaming is seen as the future for the industry, because it doesn’t require downloading or installing games on a console or PC. That is a potential threat to the console business, whose operators that have acted as industry gatekeepers.
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