On August 30th, a PlayStation Blog post suddenly announced a 35 percent price increase to all its tiers. PlayStation Plus continues to be a pale imitation of Game Pass and does little to justify its existence, let alone provide enough content to explain its staggering and frustrating price increase.
Price changes are inevitable, but PlayStation is missing the second part of the equation. In the blog post addressing the price changes, customers were assured that increasing the price was necessary to “continue bringing high quality games and value-added benefits” to the service. The announced titles for September included the recent Saints Row Reboot, which was a critical failure in most respects.
This is a particularly hard pill to swallow when it happens on the same month as the release of Starfield and Lies of P over on Game Pass. These choices are a fitting example of why Sony seems content to rest on their laurels. While no one is expecting Spider-Man 2 or God of War Ragnarök, the quality and consistency recent drops are calling into question why a price increase was even necessary, at least from a consumer perspective.
In the days before Game Pass, PlayStation Plus was also a way to highlight Indie titles that might be seen on the eyes of those who want to play it. Since the relaunch, there have been few titles of note with many of those being titles that haven't already launched on Game Pass a month or even a year sooner, like in the case with Destiny 2. The XBOX model of day and date releases is always going to push Game Pass as a better service and Microsoft knows it.
These releases are not only first party offerings, but other third-party titles that the community considers to be high hotly anticipated, like in the case of Lies of P. While many gamers would love to see PlayStation adopt this model, it doesn't seem to be in the cards. Sony does not consider PS Plus as a competitor to Game Pass, which is why they don’t see the need to offer similar features. The expectation by Sony is that brand loyalty and quality of exclusives will offset the lack of these releases on PlayStation Plus.
PlayStation Plus is also divided into tiers, and this is already part of the problem. With games varying from tier to tier, PlayStation is actively punishing players who do not want to buy in. A discerning gamer may see a list of games published for the month, only to discover the game they want is hiding behind a tier that they are not paying for. The wording of each tier is also confusing (Essential, Extra, and Premium) and it does a poor job of communicating what you are getting with each one. Game Pass, by contrast, gives you games both past and future with one subscription. It is clear on what you can and will get every month. Earlier this year, XBOX said goodbye to XBOX Live Gold as well, and now simply adds more games to Game Pass. This really brings home the straight to the point messaging behind this service, both in terms of marketing and value proposition.
Another factor impacting the differences between these libraries is the quality of the games themselves. The offerings for September are a prime example of the declining quality of the offerings over on PS Plus. The choice of games is subjective, with many of the games being offered landing on Game Pass months ago, with Sony fans those getting titles much later. Destiny 2 arrived on Game Pass back in October, with the PlayStation version landing on PS Plus a year later. While these choices will vary depending on which console you own, it is hard to discount the better or earlier choices.
If the internet is any indication, customer loyalty is not enough for many Sony fans to keep their subscription, with many gamers canceling their subscriptions, or at least threatening to do so. Over on the PS Plus subreddit, a post offers step by step instructions on how to cancel your subscription. The thread is littered with posts from fed up PlayStation gamers feeling “feed up” with the increase.
Reddit user Shadow Ryder 81 declared, “Looks like I’m going back to using my PlayStation for single player exclusives.”
The rest of the thread follows that same logic with many stating that they will only play on Sony consoles for the single player experience from now on. The thread continues with several reddit users seeming to agree that the price just isn't worth the price hike and that Sony “screwed up.” The outrage isn't about the increase in price, the increase is already pushing out customers who were barely hanging on. This offers no motivation for anyone to continue their subscription or upgrade to the next tier, because they have not been given a reason to.
Spider-Man 2 is the biggest Sony release coming this year, but since it does not have a multiplayer component, it is not affecting those that Sony should be trying to convince to stay on board. Xbox on the other hand has not only been pushing hard to promote the recently released Starfield but also takes steps to remind gamers what is coming in the next couple of months. A simple visit to the Game Pass Dashboard will give you a visual glimpse of what is coming, and even encourages you to preload, so you will be ready on day one. The key difference here is that XBOX isn't as concerned with selling games, instead focusing on subscriptions.
This simplicity is not only appealing to someone familiar with the console landscape but also one who is jumping into gaming for the first time, or those who might buy the console as a gift and wants to pair with it a collection of free games. Without having to navigate through a confusing system of tiers, comes a grantee of free games none of which are hiding behind a paywall. Choosing to invest in the Microsoft Eco system also means having multiple devices to choose from – including the cheaper (and still easier to get a hold of) XBOX Series S.
While there are a handful of performance differences between the Series S and more powerful Series X, those differences are inconsequential as all games will work fine on any device that supports Game Pass. If you are a streamer, you’ll only be outputting to 1080 anyway for better performance. While both services have similar libraires, customer loyalty to Playstation exclusive just isnt enough to justify this price increase. The idea of cheaper quality releases far and a more flexible eco system clearly makes Game Pass the better choice.
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