I'd love to see Plus and Now combined, and all the movements on the Microsoft side might just make it happen. Can't justify Now on its own usually, but absolutely would keep paying for it through Plus, even if online gaming was made free.
I'm not sure what the point would be. As it stands now, PS Plus and PS Now combined cost less than Game Pass Ultimate. Forcing PS Plus and PS Now to merge into a single service would do nothing to benefit the consumer...it would just eliminate the choices for people like
Vawn
above who only want one service and not the other. A merged service would cost these users
more than what they were paying previously.
So what do you reckon in this scenario, then? Microsoft ditches paying for online, forcing Sony to follow suit.
And then what? Microsoft have Gamepass and free online, Sony have the weaker service in PS Now and a now redundant Plus.
In this completely imaginary series of events, i can't see them getting rid of Plus. So how else do they add value?
If Microsoft were to make online play totally free, with no strings attached, then Sony and Nintendo would likely do the same.
Sony would probably make some tweaks to PS Plus, since it would no longer be required for online play. If Microsoft consolidates to a single subscription, then Sony could follow suit, and (despite what I said above) merge PS Plus with PS Now, since it would be still be cheaper than Microsoft's offering. People like
Vawn
would then decide whether this service is worth purchasing, or just drop subscriptions altogether and stick with free online play. Don't forget that players on Xbox One would also have to make a similar decision--either pay
more than what they were paying before, or play online for free and forget about the other subscription stuff.
As much as some people here are rooting for Microsoft to "go free" and somehow stick it to Sony and Nintendo, I doubt that it's going to be that simple, or that they have purely altruistic intentions here. I wouldn't put it past Microsoft to "giveth" free online play and "taketh" some other "freedom" in the process--for instance, restricting certain DLC/perks to Game Pass Ultimate subscribers only.
Want that new Call of Duty map pack? It's available exclusively to Game Pass Ultimate subscribers for 60 days! Extra bonus for GPU members: get exclusive access to the golden guns with double the firing rate and quadruple the ammo load!
Be careful what you wish for.