Tech

Xbox, PlayStation and new subscriptions as usual


It’s been more than a month since the launch of PlayStation Plus Premium, solidifying the video game industry’s shift toward subscription and cloud gaming. PlayStation’s game streaming scheme is compete head-to-head with Xbox Game PassThe service has proven the concept by earning more than 25 million subscribers over the past 5 years, leveraging Microsoft’s massive cloud network.

As the two main console manufacturers and owners of huge franchises, Sony and Microsoft set the stage for the rest of the video game market and the transition to streaming subscriptions. no different. Here, we’ll break down what they offer and look at the industry from the point of view of the cloud.

PlayStation Plus comes in three tiers: Essential, Extra, and Premium. Essential costs are $10 a month or $60 a year and this is basically the PlayStation Plus you’re used to, offering three games to download per month, access to multiplayer features online play, cloud storage and discounts. PS Plus Extra costs $15 a month or $100 a year and has everything in the Essential tier along with a library of up to 400 downloadable PS4 and PS5 games.

PS Plus Premium costs $18 a month or $120 a year and adds up to 340 games from previous PlayStation consoles. It’s also the level that unlocks cloud gaming, supports over 700 titles, and adds the ability to stream or download games from older eras. This tier actually replaces PlayStation Now, Sony’s often-understood cloud gaming service that debuted on PS4. With PS Plus Premium, cloud gaming is available on PS4, PS5 and PC, but not on mobile.

PS Plus

Sony

That’s one difference between Sony’s and Microsoft’s approaches, as Xbox titles are playable on mobile devices as well as consoles and PCs. But the bigger difference is the type of game available on each network. Sony has no plans to add major exclusive games like Forspoken or God of War Ragnarok to Plus on day one, meaning subscribers will have to purchase these titles separately if they want to play immediately. On the Xbox side, Game Pass Ultimate offers a streaming library of over 300 titles, and it includes great first-party bonuses like Halo Infinite on the date of issue. That’s important, as Xbox owns influential studios including Bethesda and id Software, and it’s in the process of acquiring Activision Blizzard. Xbox offering the next Doom or Elder Scrolls on day one is a bigger attraction than Sony offers Losteven if Stray is the loveliest game of the year.

Xbox is the strongest developer of cloud gaming in the console space, and with the backing of a strong network from Microsoft and years of public testing, Game Pass has set the standard when it comes to gaming. subscription services. Game Pass has PC-only and console-only tiers, providing access to a library of over 300 downloadable games for $10 a month, while Game Pass Ultimate unlocks the feature. play cloud on PC, mobile and Xbox for $15 a month. Assuming you pay PS Plus Premium upfront, this makes Game Pass Ultimate’s annual price $60 more than Premium – which is the same price as PlayStation subscribers to buy one of the first-party Sony games , so it all ended up shaking out.

Microsoft Xbox Series WILL

Aaron Souppouris / Engadget

Xbox has been slowly building the foundation for an industry not limited by hardware, leans more on cloud gaming than console generations, while Sony still seems to be marrying the idea of ​​more traditional game sales and hardware cycles. Despite coming first with PlayStation Now, when it comes to streaming, Sony is catching up with Microsoft, but it still has a lot to offer in the form of classic games and new exclusives. Cloud gaming is here to stay, and it’s possible that other services like Steam and the Epic Games Store will follow in the footsteps of Xbox and PlayStation in the coming years. Nintendo is backing up online, cloud, and anything like 21st century technology, but it has an unparalleled catalog of its own, and Switch Online unlocks a handful of NES, SNES, and N64 games.

It’s not that any service is better than others. This is the new normal for video games, where your money won’t be spent on a $60 disc or a discrete download, but will instead be distributed between services. streaming with individual purchases. We’re used to this idea when it comes to TV and movies, and the streaming technology is almost reliable enough to make it the norm in gaming.

Here are the new calculations we’ll be doing every month: Do I rate Game Pass Ultimate over Netflix? Or PS Plus Premium on Spotify? New subscription services appear almost weekly; something must give.

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