Sony recently announced plans to release a new version of the PlayStation Plus program to allow players to download a backlog of games. The subscription-based program is absorbing the PS Now platform and seems to be Sony’s version of Game Pass.
While it may be similar to Xbox’s Game Pass in many ways, PS Plus will be missing one feature: day-one exclusives. In a recent interview with Gameindustry.biz, PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan discussed how the investment “delivers success.” He described it as a cycle with studios that repeatedly allows PlayStation to provide quality games. Gamers like that repeated process, so he feels no need to change it.
“In terms of putting our own games into this service, or any of our services, upon their release… it’s not a road we’re going to go down with this new service.” Ryan said. “We feel if we were to do that with the games that we make at PlayStation Studios, that virtuous cycle will be broken.”
Ryan said the investment it puts into games would be severely diminished if PlayStation put day one exclusives on the service. The effect of that would be that the developers would be forced to create lesser-quality games.
Whether that happens will likely depend on how popular the service is. If PlayStation sees that day-one exclusives would attract or retain more players, it could consider a change. As the service grows, like its Microsoft counterpart, it’s likely that Sony will adapt and change PS Plus to best suit its users.
