Sony May Have Made the Right Call Not Copying Xbox Game Pass with PS Plus | Push Square

20.02.2024 - 00:45 / pushsquare.com / Phil Spencer / Xbox Game / Sony

For the best part of this generation, Sony’s been pressured by a vocal part of the gaming community to borrow Xbox Game Pass’ unproven business model with PS Plus. The platform holder eventually decided to take a half-step, merging PS Now with its existing subscription but resisting the urge to add day one first-party software to the service. It’s described this strategy as unsustainable.

For a long time, Microsoft ceased to share updates on Xbox Game Pass’ total number of subscribers, although it’s insisted the service is profitable without actually elaborating on the accounting. However, we’ve heard from analysts like Circana that gaming subscriptions have generally plateaued in the United States, and are failing to attract subscribers in the same quantities as video streaming services like Netflix.

During its business strategy podcast earlier this week, Microsoft announced that it had increased its previous total of 25 million Xbox Game Pass subscribers to 34 million, although it’s since clarified that this dramatic increase is largely due to Xbox Live Gold’s rebranding as Xbox Game Pass Core. There were almost 12 million Xbox Live Gold members prior to the change.

This would largely support theories that the service is failing to grow at a significant rate, although according to boss Phil Spencer the number of Xbox Game Pass Core members is a “pretty small” section of the overall total. He also insists its subscribers are all “fully paid” members, although conversion tricks which make the subscription more affordable than it should be do still exist.

Still, all of this would suggest that Sony has ultimately followed the right path with PS Plus, as it’s successfully increased the overall revenue of its subscriptions without damaging the full-price sales of its first-party games, like Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 which topped 10 million units this month. Considering the significant amount of pressure it faced to follow Microsoft’s lead earlier in the generation, it probably deserves some credit for holding its nerve and forging its own way.

A true PlayStation veteran, Sammy's covered the world of PS gaming for years, with an enormous Trophy count to prove it. He also likes tennis games way more than you.

Cor, Xbox getting a fair bit of promotion over here at the PlayStation news site!

Anyhow, I think what might be a nice addition and somewhat of a middle ground would be for PlayStation to pop first day releases on to PS Plus Extra for a whole month (in its entireity). Will allow some hardcore people to finish it and others to enjoy a decent chunk and taste of it before committing to a discounted purchase of the game.

Allows for additional subscriptions as well as not hampering general game sales too much.