Project Spartacus, Sony’s answer to Microsoft’s Game Pass and one of the worst kept secrets in gaming may officially be announced next week. Bloomberg are reporting that “people familiar with the plans” have leaked some of the details.
Those people, “who requested anonymity because the plans are private”, have suggested the service will launch with multiple tiers and “a splashy line up of hit games from recent years.”
Project Spartacus, aka PlayStation Game Pass, will combine PlayStation Now with PlayStation Plus. However, unlike Microsoft’s Game Pass the service is unlikely to have Sony’ blockbuster titles on day one, so God of War Ragnarök would not be on the service when it launches. Bloomberg have seen documents that have revealed the highest tier of the new pass will allow subscribers to stream games rather than download them, and also give players “extended demos”, so perhaps you will get to play the first hour of God of War Ragnarök rather than the whole thing.
According to IGN, the first tier will be the same as the current PlayStation Plus subscription. The more expensive tiers will add in a library of games with the most expensive including PS1, PS2, PS3, and PSP games.
We’ve yet to hear what happens to those who already have subscriptions to PlayStation Now and PlayStation Plus, or if there will be any changes to the existing services. Since Game Pass has launched the free games on Microsoft’s Games with Gold have been rather lacklustre compared to those on PlayStation Plus so it will be interesting to see what happens there.
Yesterday Microsoft’s Phil Spencer had a cosy chat with Sarah Bond at GDC 2022 and she rather prematurely announced that Sony had revealed their new subscription service. You can hear her slip up at around 16m10s in the video below.
MrYd
This might be one of the more believable rumours.
Sony have at least been thinking about different tiers for PS+ for several years. The latest alleged leaks of the 3 tiers and prices seem reasonable. The usual announcement of the next month’s games is due next Wednesday, and Sony like to do their big announcements in the middle of the week. And we just had a PS5 update that suspiciously coincided with PSN problems that seemed to affect PS+/Now and the store.
If we don’t get the usual PS+ announcement on Wednesday and they announce another State of Play thing for next week, April is going to get interesting.
TrannosaurusBex
I really wish this would stop being referred to as ‘Sonys answer to game pass’ as it’s just setting the service up for failure. Was game pass not initially ‘”Microsoft’s answer to PS+”?
We pretty much know the new PS+ isn’t going to have exclusives on day one, so what exactly is the comparison between the two? They’re two separate subscription models, although admittedly they are rivals, doing what’s best for them.
MrYd
Wasn’t Game Pass more their answer to PS Now? They already started the PS+ style small handful of games each month sometime after PS+ started. Then they went for “fewer games, but some newer ones for a higher price” with Game Pass.
Spartacus seems like it’ll just be combining PS+ with PS Now and hopefully not abandoning the lower priced option as MS seem to have done with some terrible monthly offerings. And hopefully they’ll still have the yearly option.