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Report: Sony overhauling PlayStation Plus with new tiers and streaming

Topher

Gold Member
If there’s one thing about Jim…he knows their PlayStation fans will happily gobble up another Sony money grab and defend it.

So with Microsoft it is great value. With Sony it is a "money grab".

Jonah Hill Ok GIF
 

laynelane

Member
It'll simply show Sony gamers that corporate Sony is no different than MS.

Just like when MS charged money for Gold and online was free on PS3. Then Sony announces PS4 MP is behind a paid PS+ wall and then every PS fan shut their mouths about online fees. Never saw one talk about Sony vs MS online fees ever again.

PS Now came out before GP, but GP is on another level. First party games, more recent games, more day one third party games, all games downloadable on Xbox and PC at their native specs. PS Now focuses on PS1-PS4 games, PS3 games are stream only on PS and 100% of games are stream only on PC at gimped res at a max of 1080p I think.

And besides options are great. Some people like sub plans, some dont.

Some people are purists and every movie, game, tv show or song they buy each one. Some people say forget it and whatever is available on a sub plan is good enough.

No one talks about Sony vs. MS online fees 'cause there's nothing to talk about. In the end, even Nintendo got in on charging for online play. :messenger_pensive: On another note, I like your point about options. As someone who has zero interest in subs and buys my games physically as much as possible, this focus on such services has been worrying. Just so long as options exist, though, it's all good.
 
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Time to find my exact prediction from over a year ago.

I did have PS Vita games too though. Using the Dualsense touch pad to mimic the touch
It'll simply show Sony gamers that corporate Sony is no different than MS.

Just like when MS charged money for Gold and online was free on PS3. Then Sony announces PS4 MP is behind a paid PS+ wall and then every PS fan shut their mouths about online fees. Never saw one talk about Sony vs MS online fees ever again.

PS Now came out before GP, but GP is on another level. First party games, more recent games, more day one third party games, all games downloadable on Xbox and PC at their native specs. PS Now focuses on PS1-PS4 games, PS3 games are stream only on PS and 100% of games are stream only on PC at gimped res at a max of 1080p I think.

And besides options are great. Some people like sub plans, some dont.

Some people are purists and every movie, game, tv show or song they buy each one. Some people say forget it and whatever is available on a sub plan is good enough.
Yeah youre making stuff up. Everyone complained. But Sony also gave games aka “gamepass”. Which was a crazy at the time.

“ Never saw one talk about Sony vs MS online fees ever again.” Yeah cause then it forced Xbox to also offer games. Which are always shit to this day.

PSNow was streaming games for people who didn’t have consoles. Sony was preparing themselves for when everyone had broadband.. which in the most important market.. they don’t. PSNow’s compeitor is XCloud… which is nowher as well.

Gamepass‘ actual competitor is Xbox’s game sales. Which are stale compared to their peers. So they are willing to compete with them in a way Sony isnt willing to compete (with their game sales). Same way Nintendo would be equally stupid to have Nintendo Online offer Nintendo first party games day one.

So what Sony and Nintendo are doing is trying to offer a selection of games you wouldnt necessarily purchase all individually, but would like to experience. Aka their back catalog. While offering some strategically monthly AAA games. They wouldnt be offering they library day one anytime soon. Especially they sell 10+ million copies on the regular. Excluding the strategical game here and there. Like Destruction All Stars. Or Pacman 99.
 

THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
They compete in a different, simpler way.

Quality of 1st party games.

Oh brother, so basically you have no actual counter point that Sony is not competing in the subscription space so it's time for a massive deflection.

Explain to me why Sony can't do both, compete with higher quality 1st party games and have a proper subscription service?
It doesn't even have to be the same as gamepass, it just needs to be better than it is now.
 

Topher

Gold Member
Oh brother, so basically you have no actual counter point that Sony is not competing in the subscription space so it's time for a massive deflection.

Sony's games sell. I'm not clear why Sony would want to put so much investment into subscriptions when their own model is doing extremely well. More than likely they are trying to add value competitively, but let's not pretend subscriptions have taken over the gaming world. They certainly have not.
 
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kyliethicc

Member
Oh brother, so basically you have no actual counter point that Sony is not competing in the subscription space so it's time for a massive deflection.

Explain to me why Sony can't do both, compete with higher quality 1st party games and have a proper subscription service?
It doesn't even have to be the same as gamepass, it just needs to be better than it is now.
Never said they can't.
 

THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
Sony's games sell. I'm not clear why Sony would want to put so much investment into subscriptions when their own model is doing extremely well. More than likely they are trying to add value competitively, but let's not pretend subscriptions have taken over the gaming world. They certainly have not.

For two reasons - one, to increase profits in subsidiary ways, and two, to remain competitive with an eye towards the future.

What you just said was exactly what nbc/cbs/abc all said when netflix launched, who cares, we still make money, and look how that market has massively shifted to subscription services. If you don't see the shift happening as well in the gaming world, your not paying attention. Sit still and get moved by.
 

Topher

Gold Member
For two reasons - one, to increase profits in subsidiary ways, and two, to remain competitive with an eye towards the future.

What you just said was exactly what nbc/cbs/abc all said when netflix launched, who cares, we still make money, and look how that market has massively shifted to subscription services. If you don't see the shift happening as well in the gaming world, your not paying attention. Sit still and get moved by.

Simple fact is that selling video games is the primary way to make money in this industry. It is a hell of a lot easier to rent a two hour movie than it is a 10+ hour video game. We are comparing a nightly event in watching TV with an occasional event in playing video games. That isn't the case for enthusiasts like us, but for the industry overall, yeah....that's the way it is. These silly comparisons to Netflix need to stop. They really do not compare at all.
 

sainraja

Member
It doesn't, but it's not going to stop games journalists and gamers from doing that comparison. Also, Sony isn't going to do itself any favor if it markets this thing as their Gamepass. They're only going to fuel those comparisons further.
Well that's fine really given they are trying to re-introduce their offerings to better position themselves against their competitor.

PS Now as it was, had similar offerings to what they are now announcing (the day one aspect has not changed) and no one was talking about it.

I still hope that subscription services don't become the primary way for both Microsoft & Sony to make money from games they are publishing and so far we have no signs of that happening so that's good.
 
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sainraja

Member
For two reasons - one, to increase profits in subsidiary ways, and two, to remain competitive with an eye towards the future.

What you just said was exactly what nbc/cbs/abc all said when netflix launched, who cares, we still make money, and look how that market has massively shifted to subscription services. If you don't see the shift happening as well in the gaming world, your not paying attention. Sit still and get moved by.
Well, Disney+ has shown a company can adapt to a changing market.
 

THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
Simple fact is that selling video games is the primary way to make money in this industry. It is a hell of a lot easier to rent a two hour movie than it is a 10+ hour video game. We are comparing a nightly event in watching TV with an occasional event in playing video games. That isn't the case for enthusiasts like us, but for the industry overall, yeah....that's the way it is. These silly comparisons to Netflix need to stop. They really do not compare at all.

Of course they do, it was a tv based entertainment platform that went from one primary form of consumption to subscription base, all the while people like you swore the industry would not change. It's exactly the same.
 
They are limiting PS1 and PSP games to the streaming tier, which pretty likely means they will use the PS3 emulators they had for that, so PS1 and PSP would be streaming only, and would run these games without trophies. To don't include trophies would make easier to add hundreds of games super fast. To port the games to PS4 and program trophies game by game would highly reduce the number of games added because the investment wouldn't be worth it for most devs since almost nobody would buy PS1 and PSP games today unless properly remastered/remade.
It's really not THAT hard to make trophies for retro games; fans of actual retro games have been doing this for sometime with tools in certain emulators, and hosting them on sites like retroachievements. As long as you're online, any achievements you unlock in the game get recorded to your profile for that game. In something like RetroArch you just make sure the feature is turned on and you enter the profile you want to link, and you're generally set.

These are people with no money invested able to do this for hundreds of retro SNES, MegaDrive, PS1, PC-Engine, Dreamcast etc. games; it would be equivalent of a write-off for Sony to add trophies for PS1/2/3 and PSP/Vita games on this service, especially if they work with 3P publishers to do so. Of course there is also a middle-ground: launch a ton of games without trophies, and then update games gradually with trophy support (and while at it, for games where it'd make sense, online play networking).

If they're going to use the classic game catalog as an entity in itself to incentivize subscriptions (especially if they are provided without the option to download), they should go all-out and add some new features to these games to give them added value when modders on the retro scene have been doing it for decades, and smaller-market niche devices like Polymega can offer great CRT filters and aspect ratio options (something else worth providing at a system/service level for the classic catalog).

Otherwise there's not going to be a big enough interest in that particular part of the offering for nostalgic/retro fans who want a reason to play these games via streaming through subscription vs. playing them on an emulator on PC, real hardware or other game consoles, and most of the classic games there will lack amenities and QoL features to keep casuals and gamers who didn't grow up with the games interested longer-term.
 

THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
You can hear tone from text?

Season 8 Nbc GIF by One Chicago

Let's educate you while we are at it, tone can most definately be conveyed by written words:

"In literary terms, tone typically refers to the mood implied by an author's word choice and the way that the text can make a reader feel. The tone an author uses in a piece of writing can evoke any number of emotions and perspectives. Tone can also span a wide array of textual styles, from terse to prosaic."
 

sainraja

Member
If they were serious about competing, both of these would have been added years ago......especially zero dawn. And only 3 months for a 18 month old first party title? Wow.
Do we know the plan Sony has for adding their first-party games to this new version of their services?

They might not do day one but they could follow movie theater type of pattern with the movie releases. I am not saying I am for or against that (I always buy games I am interested in) but it's something they can do and it would still be competitive.
 
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Topher

Gold Member
Of course they do, it was a tv based entertainment platform that went from one primary form of consumption to subscription base, all the while people like you swore the industry would not change. It's exactly the same.

People like me? When did I say the industry would not change? No.....I actually never said that at all. You just made that up entirely. I said the comparison to TV didn't jive because of the time investment in one doesn't jive with the other. I made that perfectly clear. It seems you want to ignore the arguments I do make and invent ones that you find more satisfactory. Sorry....that's not how this works.

Well we all know what was meant, dancing around it is high level semantics.

Nonsense. You are making up arguments that simply have not been made.....once again.

Let's educate you while we are at it, tone can most definately be conveyed by written words:

"In literary terms, tone typically refers to the mood implied by an author's word choice and the way that the text can make a reader feel. The tone an author uses in a piece of writing can evoke any number of emotions and perspectives. Tone can also span a wide array of textual styles, from terse to prosaic."

Now you are comparing literature which is typically a narrative that is meant to invoke emotion to very basic forum posts.

Edit:
Unfortunate that when you googled for some wisdom that you didn't keep reading....

"In literary terms, tone typically refers to the mood implied by an author’s word choice and the way that the text can make a reader feel.

The tone an author uses in a piece of writing can evoke any number of emotions and perspectives. Tone can also span a wide array of textual styles, from terse to prosaic. Tone is what helps terrify the reader in Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart,” and it helps convey the point of view of an old man in “After Apple-Picking” by Robert Frost. Furthermore, certain attributes of your writing—including voice, inflection, cadence, mood, and style—are related to tone.

To understand how much tone affects a piece of literature, consider the difference between the novel The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger and the novella Apt Pupil by Stephen King. Both deal with teenage boys navigating a world of adults in big cities (New York and Los Angeles, respectively). What’s more, the main character of each tale has a breakdown during the course of the story. Yet the two literary works are completely different, due to their different types of tones. Salinger’s novel has a tone of vulnerability cloaked in cynicism, while King’s is far darker, portraying a descent into psychopathy."

You really think they are talking about forum posts? And you are pretending to educate others?

stop no GIF by cerecdoctors
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Of course they do, it was a tv based entertainment platform that went from one primary form of consumption to subscription base, all the while people like you swore the industry would not change. It's exactly the same.
Yup.

All entertainment is like that. Music, movies and gaming.

Passive entertainment like music and radio subs were easiest to move to move to digital copies or sub plans. I had a Sirius sub in 2004. How many people buy songs or albums anymore? Not me. Havent bought a CD in probably 10 years. I think the last one I bought was a Michael Jackson Greatest Hits CD only because the guy died. I never even opened it. And why would I buy digital songs? I'll listen to free online radio channels. But back when I had Sirius, streaming their channels online didnt make a dent into my bandwidth even though I had a cap back then of tiny limits.

Movies and TV went hardcore sub plan the second everyone started getting unlimited bandwidth.

Gaming is last as game companies have only been doing this the past 5 or so years. It's pretty new. And many gamers will always balk at it due to lag for competitive games and because gaming is such a front loaded medium for sales, gamers are so itching to buy the latest game day one or week one many dont want to wait 9 months for it to maybe come to a sub plan. To them it's old news by then. But for movies and music, it's not so "now now now hits driven". People can watch and play old shit from the 1970s and still enjoy it as much as something made in 2021.

It's getting there for new day one games. MS, EA and UBI do it for their services. It'll grow.

It'll get to a tipping point for the rest to jump on if the value equation gets there. Giant hits like Apex and Fortnite and any other free or dirt cheap game shows you dont have to sell $60 copies to be big money makers. If these games wanted to after they got traction, they could had stopped free downloads and charge newbies wanting in the action $60 going forward. But nope.
 
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Hope it's like gamepass and gives you a discount on first party games.

Because that's ballsy to charge for a sub and still expect you to pick up $70 games.

If they put the Last of Us Remaster on there day 1? Now we are talking....kind of...because it's like the third time this game canout.
 
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THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
Do we know the plan Sony has for adding their first-party games to this new version of their services?

They might not do day one but they could follow movie theater type of pattern with the movie releases. I am not saying I am for or against that (I always buy games I am interested in) but it's something they can do and it would still be competitive.

Yep there could easily be a middle ground.
 

THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
People like me? When did I say the industry would not change? No.....I actually never said that at all. You just made that up entirely. I said the comparison to TV didn't jive because of the time investment in one doesn't jive with the other. I made that perfectly clear. It seems you want to ignore the arguments I do make and invent ones that you find more satisfactory. Sorry....that's not how this works.



Nonsense. You are making up arguments that simply have not been made.....once again.



Now you are comparing literature which is typically a narrative that is meant to invoke emotion to very basic forum posts.

Edit:
Unfortunate that when you googled for some wisdom that you didn't keep reading....

"In literary terms, tone typically refers to the mood implied by an author’s word choice and the way that the text can make a reader feel.

The tone an author uses in a piece of writing can evoke any number of emotions and perspectives. Tone can also span a wide array of textual styles, from terse to prosaic. Tone is what helps terrify the reader in Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart,” and it helps convey the point of view of an old man in “After Apple-Picking” by Robert Frost. Furthermore, certain attributes of your writing—including voice, inflection, cadence, mood, and style—are related to tone.

To understand how much tone affects a piece of literature, consider the difference between the novel The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger and the novella Apt Pupil by Stephen King. Both deal with teenage boys navigating a world of adults in big cities (New York and Los Angeles, respectively). What’s more, the main character of each tale has a breakdown during the course of the story. Yet the two literary works are completely different, due to their different types of tones. Salinger’s novel has a tone of vulnerability cloaked in cynicism, while King’s is far darker, portraying a descent into psychopathy."

You really think they are talking about forum posts? And you are pretending to educate others?

stop no GIF by cerecdoctors

Man you went back and found a lot to try and disprove two things that are still true despite your weak protest, the fact that we know what you meant and yes even a forum post can have tone. Try harder.
 

wolffy71

Banned
Anyone who thought Sony would just sit back and let all the customers interested in a gaming sub, jump to MS, need a lesson in biz management
 

Corndog

Banned
Oh brother, so basically you have no actual counter point that Sony is not competing in the subscription space so it's time for a massive deflection.

Explain to me why Sony can't do both, compete with higher quality 1st party games and have a proper subscription service?
It doesn't even have to be the same as gamepass, it just needs to be better than it is now.
Probably because they believe it would eat into their sales.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Do we know the plan Sony has for adding their first-party games to this new version of their services?

They might not do day one but they could follow movie theater type of pattern with the movie releases. I am not saying I am for or against that (I always buy games I am interested in) but it's something they can do and it would still be competitive.
Yep there could easily be a middle ground.
EA Play shows you can sell games and still be on sub plan. Almost all of their games come to EA Play (the standard sub plan not the PC Origins Ultimate plan which has day one) about 9 months later.

Sports, shooters, ME and even smaller budget games like It Takes Two and Unravel are on EA Play.

Does FIFA, Madden and BF sales drop like a rock because everyone knows it'll come to EA's sub plan in less than a year? Doesn't seem so. Their entire catalog comes to EA Play later, so any value gamer will never have to buy a $60 AAA game or $20 Unravel ever again. Just wait. But gaming is a day one hyped industry. So there's enough gamers to buy day one, and then the stragglers play it dirt cheap for $30 during Best Buy sales or wait longer for sub plans.

Movies are no different. Just about every blockbuster movie comes out to one of the movie sub plans later. Everyone knows that. Does that mean nobody goes to theatres or buys a BR copy? Nope. Some go to the theatre, some buy a copy off Amazon, some wait for Netflix. Some overlap and do it all.

There's money to made off different people.
 

Topher

Gold Member
Man you went back and found a lot to try and disprove two things that are still true despite your weak protest, the fact that we know what you meant and yes even a forum post can have tone. Try harder.

Nah....I simply threw your attempt to "educate" me back in your face. I'm not sorry, frankly. You asked for it.

But I'm sure kyliethicc kyliethicc appreciates that you hold his prose in such high regard.
 
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THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
Probably because they believe it would eat into their sales.

I suspect that's thier fear, but they should also fear actually losing customers to gamepass too. There is already a ton of people on this very board that chose an ms machine due to it, and there will be more. Even those with both machines it's a risk to them, the more time spend on xbox is time away from buying ps5 games, or even 3rd party games that Sony gets a cut on.
 
Yes, which is exactly what Sony needs to do.
Disney+ doesnt offer their biggest movies day one. Doesnt offer their shows in one go. They stretch them weeks unlike Netflix. They charged an extra 30$ for their AAA movies. It’s mostly back catalogue. With some strategic content here and there. At most one show per season.

It’s exactly like PSNow.

Playstation and Nintendo arent going to offer all their titles day one in their subscriptions until they stop selling 10+ million copies each. Excluding games like Destruction All Stars, Pacman 99, aka games that are risky or multiplayer centric.

I can see Sony releasing The Last of Us: Factions day one on PS+….+.
 

Lupin25

Member
People like me? When did I say the industry would not change? No.....I actually never said that at all. You just made that up entirely. I said the comparison to TV didn't jive because of the time investment in one doesn't jive with the other. I made that perfectly clear. It seems you want to ignore the arguments I do make and invent ones that you find more satisfactory. Sorry....that's not how this works.



Nonsense. You are making up arguments that simply have not been made.....once again.



Now you are comparing literature which is typically a narrative that is meant to invoke emotion to very basic forum posts.

Edit:
Unfortunate that when you googled for some wisdom that you didn't keep reading....

"In literary terms, tone typically refers to the mood implied by an author’s word choice and the way that the text can make a reader feel.

The tone an author uses in a piece of writing can evoke any number of emotions and perspectives. Tone can also span a wide array of textual styles, from terse to prosaic. Tone is what helps terrify the reader in Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart,” and it helps convey the point of view of an old man in “After Apple-Picking” by Robert Frost. Furthermore, certain attributes of your writing—including voice, inflection, cadence, mood, and style—are related to tone.

To understand how much tone affects a piece of literature, consider the difference between the novel The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger and the novella Apt Pupil by Stephen King. Both deal with teenage boys navigating a world of adults in big cities (New York and Los Angeles, respectively). What’s more, the main character of each tale has a breakdown during the course of the story. Yet the two literary works are completely different, due to their different types of tones. Salinger’s novel has a tone of vulnerability cloaked in cynicism, while King’s is far darker, portraying a descent into psychopathy."

You really think they are talking about forum posts? And you are pretending to educate others?

stop no GIF by cerecdoctors

I still can’t get over the fact these guys are still comparing a casual medium like TV/Movies to such an interactive one like gaming.

They also assume that most people would be willing to make equal time and investment for both and for many, that’s not realistic.

I understand the value proposition of XGP, but in terms of competing subscriptions, PS Plus currently has the most subscribers and it’s all, but culminated it’s peak…
 

Hoppa

Member
I’m intrigued, but I’ve already bought most first party PS games and don’t see the value in playing PS1/2 games again. It would also seem a bit quick to think they’ve got any titles exclusive to this service lined up, maybe some deal with Sifu and the Devil Inside game?

Strange situation for PS Xbox just totally blindsided them
 

Ozriel

M$FT
What’s up with people becoming Grinches these days?

First we had folks demanding that 343i delay Halo Infinite campaign for everyone until co-op…when they could just wait themselves for coop to be ready. And now there’s a flood of people claiming to be terrified of a completely optional subscription future…a future where ALL games will still continue to be sold at retail.

Why do people want their pet peeves to stifle progress for everyone else?

I welcome Sony’s upgraded subscription service. I’ll likely jump in if there’s a tier that includes Crunchyroll in it. And certainly, I’m enjoying Gamepass at the moment.

anyone who doesn’t want subscription services can continue to buy their games off GameStop, Amazon etc. or digital off PSN and XBL.
 

Ozriel

M$FT
I understand the value proposition of XGP, but in terms of competing subscriptions, PS Plus currently has the most subscribers and it’s all, but culminated it’s peak…

Comparing PS+ to Gamepass has never been logical. Why does this keep cropping up?
 
Their just merging PS+ & PS Now.
What does that have to do with GamePass being sustainable or profitable?

PS+ is running out of good monthly games, so it's best to make streaming apart of the PS+ offerings.
Xbox fans having meltdowns because Jason threw Gamepass into his Twitter post.
This new service from Sony will likely not be a direct competitor to Gamepass.
It's basically sounding like a unification of PS plus and PS now. Something PS fans have been asking for a long time.
Jason loves to stir some shit among the warriors lol
 

bender

What time is it?
I think PS+ helped push Microsoft to improve the Gold offering. I hope they have some differentiators that help distinguish it from Game Pass and help breed competition. It's going to be hard for Sony to top Microsoft implementation though as how Game Pass is delivered is pretty great and I doubt Sony's going to offer their first party catalogue day one.
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Comparing PS+ to Gamepass has never been logical. Why does this keep cropping up?
Who knows. But probably because PS+ numbers are big and nobody wants to talk about PS Now sub count. But if someone can convince the board using PS+ (which can get confusing with PS Now) then the higher number wins.
 

kyliethicc

Member
I think PS+ helps push Microsoft to improve the Gold offering. I hope they have some differentiators that help distinguish it from Game Pass and help bread competition. It's going to be hard for Sony to top Microsoft implementation though as how Game Pass is delivered is pretty great and I doubt Sony's going to offer their first party catalogue day one.
PlayStation changing PS Plus (by folding PS Now into it) will accelerate Xbox merging XB Live into Game Pass.

Comparing PS+ to Gamepass has never been logical. Why does this keep cropping up?
Who knows. But probably because PS+ numbers are big and nobody wants to talk about PS Now sub count. But if someone can convince the board using PS+ (which can get confusing with PS Now) then the higher number wins.
Because once PS Now goes away, Sony will only have 1 sub service - PS Plus.

And we all know eventually Xbox will get rid of Live and just have Game Pass.

So it'll be 1v1 eventually. It already is for many psychologically.
 
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