Sony has been rumored to be working on a competitor to Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass service for a while now, and the big moment for PlayStation fans might soon arrive. Indeed, according to a report from Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the plans, the product could finally launch next week.
Rumored to be known as “Spartacus,” the Sony service is said to be a combination of both PlayStation Now and PlayStation Plus, according to Bloomberg. That means, just like Game Pass, there also could be different tiers, allowing gamers to enjoy both modern PlayStation titles, as well as classic PlayStation titles.
An expensive tier could allow PlayStation users to access extended demos of certain titles, and stream them over the internet. Unfortunately, however, unlike Game Pass, Sony might not include hit PlayStation titles on the same day they come out on the service. Meaning, it reportedly won’t include God of War Ragnarök, which is much anticipated.
It will be interesting to see if this service can help Sony “catch up” to Microsoft in the cloud gaming and video game subscription space. It might be too little too late, though, as Game Pass is already one of the best values in gaming, priced at $15 a month for Ultimate, and $10 a month for Console, or $10 a month on PC. Ultimate also has access to Xbox Cloud Gaming, too.
Last Microsoft reported, there were 25 million subscribers to Game Pass. That’s well ahead of the 3.2 million subscribers who already use PS Now, which lets PlayStation users stream PS2, PS3, and PS4 games. Yet, it’s also well behind the 46.3 million who use PS Plus, which is required for online play in most new PS4 and PS5 games. Depending on the price, combining PS Now and PS Plus into this new subscription service could very well be the answer for Sony, but we’ll have to wait and see.
