All-New PlayStation Plus vs. Xbox Game Pass – which is better value?

Sony has announced a complete overhaul for PlayStation Plus, combining the old PS Plus with their game subscription service PS Now into a single product, starting in June 2022. From the basic Essentials tier, up to the Premium tier with game streaming and an expanded library of games from the PS1, PS2 and PSP, there’s still plenty of flexibility to get what you want and how.

Many industry watchers (ourselves included) are seeing this as a fresh attempt to counteract Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass, and it’s certainly true that Sony are consolidating their services in a way that should be easier and more attractive for end users. So let’s look at the different options and tiers, and how they compare.

In this comparison, we’re breaking things down into tiers. When it relaunches in June, PlayStation Plus will have three options – Essential, Extra and Premium. Given the pricing tiers, we’re stacking PS Plus Essential up against Xbox Live Gold, as base level subscriptions that continue to offer the same value as previously. Then we’re comparing PS Plus Extra and Premium with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. The standard Game Pass for Xbox and Game Pass for PC aren’t comparable products in terms of price.

And now onto the comparison that really matters:

* Xbox Game Pass is only offered on a monthly basis, so we’ve tallied the cost of 12 individual months.

As you can see, the value really depends on how you want to game. For basic online multiplayer and a handful of free games, the balance is exactly the same as before for PlayStation Plus and Xbox Live Gold, it’s just that this tier is now branded as ‘Essential’ on PlayStation.

Looking to game libraries, Xbox Game Pass’ standard tier simply doesn’t make that much sense on Xbox anymore, but still has merits on PC. On a month-to-month basis, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is also very competitive, thanks to having a large library of over 400 games, spanning four generations of Xbox and also including over 400 games playable on PC. All of this library is also playable via game streaming.

However, where Game Pass falls down is in yearly pricing. Sony offers a much, much better deal if you’re paying up front for a year (and also has a quarterly option), while only lets you subscribe on a monthly basis. With that in mind, PS Plus Premium, with classic PS3 and older games, and game streaming looks to be a good value.

But Game Pass’ trump card is really that it will include all of Microsoft’s first party games on day one. Sony has stated that Extra and Premium will include “Death Stranding, God of War, Marvel’s Spider-Man, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Mortal Kombat 11, and Returnal”, but these games are all over a year old already, and PlayStation boss Jim Ryan has said that day one releases into PS Plus is not “a road that we’re going to go down with this new service.”

Day one first party games could happen now and then – see the release of Destruction AllStars as a PS Plus game – but it doesn’t seem that Sony are competing on that point. We’ll simply have to wait and see what they will do in terms of appealing to third parties and indies for day one launches, and if they will view with Microsoft for that kind of content.