The future of PlayStation Subscription services

Only by about £10 or so I think and that's going off RRP.
With deals at the moment GPU comes in £15 cheaper if you check prices at CDKeys.

Yep, there’s not much in it if you stack when there’s deals. The canny shopper will always do better. I got Now for just over £30 for 12 months a couple of months ago and Plus for £35, not interested in EA.
 
I expect Ubisoft to bring thier sub service from stadia onto PlayStation and xbox at some point

The service is not even on Stadia yet, just get the typical coming soon replies from Stadia and Ubi.
 
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I think that Sony are probably 2-3 years behind Microsoft technically, from reading opinion it seems PSNow isn't that highly regarded and its telling that Sony have signed up to use Azure.

Even if they develop the capability to make a gamepass like service, I wonder how the financials will work - if MS are determined to dominate with gamepass they have deeper pockets than Sony which means they can pay developers more for games.

Keep in mind that MS say gamepass barely makes a profit and they have lower costs for the hosting (on Azure) I do wonder how Sony could compete in a straight fight, they need a USP (would exclusives be enough?). I guess PSNow has that in terms of the number of games, but I'm not really sure how many people are going to go play spyro the dragon from the PS1 or 2 days ? Even PS3 stuff is going to look horribly dated, especially to kids.

Given that gampeass is Microsoft's strategy for their Xbox/gaming sector, I can see price rises on the horizon to help cover the cost of hardware losses (consoles) and investment in to studios - not only Zenimax but the studios they bought/set up 2/3 years ago (what are they producing btw ? is there a pipeline of stuff coming?). Add in running costs for the studios of course. I would expect them to ditch hardware first - i.e. no xbox-next-next gen. if gamepass works well. Sony are tentatively pushing this way too by releasing games on to PC.

The likes of Ubisoft setting up their own service is kind of interesting, but how long will it last ? To my mind it would be easier to do a licensing deal with MS and just let them deal with the operational stuff.

That leads me to wonder what Steam/Epic are going to do on PC. In order to maintain their standing I can see them offering GaaS in the future for PC. Could that expand to consoles too ? after all, if they follow MS architecture (as I understand it) all we're talking about is running an image in the cloud...

I think Google will eventually get bored of running stadia as they do with most of their projects, although I can see MS/Sony following the "buy a controller to access games" route.

Luna is a bit of an unknown, Amazon are well accustomed to running things at a loss and its obviously not their core business - I suppose if they think they are gaining on their other products/services from it, they'll keep it going.

As someone who rarely buys games the subscription model will work out more expensive, but I suppose eventually it will all go that way - the initial step to digital only games (rather than physical media) is already underway.
 
PS Now was and is miles ahead of game pass for streaming not sure how you could think otherwise. Sony has some very clever tech for streaming.
 
PS Now was and is miles ahead of game pass for streaming not sure how you could think otherwise. Sony has some very clever tech for streaming.

I see lots of people saying it lags and its generally not up to the technical quality of Gp. I don't know, I've never tried it, but certainly consensus seems that GP is much better, in part due tot he fact is carries current ( as in brand new) games.
 
@Crafty You make some good points, but PS Now is more than just ps1, 2 and 3 games, there's over 300 PS4 games with recent titles added in rotation too..
 
Why dont you try it for your self you should make your own opinion. alot of opinions i hear about psnow its obvious that they havent tried it PSnow has been totally fine when ive used it.

also psnow doesnt have ps1 games on it and the ps2 games on it are the the few ps4 versions that were released

its mainly ps3 and ps4 games
 
alot of opinions i hear about psnow its obvious that they havent tried it PSnow has been totally fine when ive used it.
This.

See it a lot around here. I think it's based off opinions from when PSNow was first launched but it's changed so much since then.
 
I see lots of people saying it lags and its generally not up to the technical quality of Gp. I don't know, I've never tried it, but certainly consensus seems that GP is much better, in part due tot he fact is carries current ( as in brand new) games.

Gamepass has Xbox exclusives included day 1, for what it’s worth, and that is THE differentiating factor in favour of it. But that’s the subscription part of the service, so weigh up a lot more games on PS Now vs Xbox 1st party. PSNow has about 850 games, Gamepass 250, the big third party games are broadly equivalent as they rotate through, but PSNow only has older first party games.

On the streaming side of the service Sony is ahead, not least because they’ve been doing it far longer, and use the same tech to offer associated services like Shareplay and Remote Play. Xcloud isn’t even out of Beta yet.

Sony do need to put some effort into marketing PS Now and making the app itself clearer and easier to use, the whole UI needs a complete overhaul. They could also lean into their first party catalogue a bit more, they don’t necessarily need to give away the family jewels day one like Xbox but could certainly do with offering a subset of those games earlier than they do currently. Especially as a big chunk of the first party catalogue has been given away with Plus.
 
@Crafty You make some good points, but PS Now is more than just ps1, 2 and 3 games, there's over 300 PS4 games with recent titles added in rotation too..

346 PS4 games according to what I read this morning. Which is about 100 more than the total number games on Gamepass.
 
12 months of PSNow can also be bought for almost half the price of Gamepass.

CD Keys PSNow £34.99 / Gamepass £59.99
 
Can you share ps now like you can do with games?
 
12 months of PSNow can also be bought for almost half the price of Gamepass.

CD Keys PSNow £34.99 / Gamepass £59.99

Well worth it that price IMHO.

I found this site a little easier to see what games are on Now btw.

 
I think it's a great price and more than had my monies worth. I loaded up 2 years when I could grab it for £28 a year at one point.
 
It’s been mentioned before but I agree that it doesn’t look like Sony is looking to combine PS+ and Now.

I get why they did the PS+ Collection, it’s 18 of the biggest games on PS4 without having yet another subscription. I don’t see them adding to these 18 but just continue offering free ones each month.

PSNow is obviously going to get some attention eventually but it does need the WOW factor.

I think every 1st party exclusive should go on there after say 2 years once the games hit £20 for a digital copy

Obviously the aim is Back Compatibility here, and if they include everything for the monthly charge. That makes it very compelling but it needs the WOW factor like I said
 
If anything then, the public perception (at least from opnions I've read) is that gamepass is good and PSNow a bit "meh" needs to change. Sony should definately push that harder and its curious they haven't thus far. Maybe its a innate dislike of cloud/streaming as opposed to download and play (like gamepass).

If Sony push more exclusives to PC I think someone could be smart by offering a range of PCs at varying spec levels with steam/epic/PS/Xbox stores pre-loaded, chuck in a controller, stick in in a pretty case and there you go, access to pretty much all games and just as acceptable as a console stuck under the tv. You could even roll up the subscriptions and an upgrade path for hardware into a monthly payment, so in 2 years or whatever a shiny new graphic card arrives that just slots in.
 
So, here is the thing. The value from anything is what it means to you. For some now is going to be better.

But if we think more broadly - beyond what is our own taste this is what we see -

PSNow has more games by pure numbers
PSNow is cheaper.
PSNow gets a few new games in rotation.
there are big WWS games on it.
Sony have 120 million people with a console who could use it.
They have millions on PC who can at least use the stream stuff.

so how come then, with more games, more addressable users, lower cost, ‘better games’(the WWS stuff) and being at it longer does Now have ~3million subs but Gamepass has 15 million? in half the time?

If volume of users subbing is the overall metric of success of a sub offering, how has the ‘better’ offering which is also cheaper got very little traction with uses of such a long time?
 
but is it cheaper ? someone on a different thread said they bought 3 years gamepass for £87. Thats something like 55p a week... here's a deal for £73 3 years Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for £73 (New Users Only - See Post) - hotukdeals

There were $1 deals.

I can't find anything for PSNow under £40 a year.

The other thing is people want new stuff when its brand new. They don't want to wait 6 months or longer to play the latest FIFA or COD or whatever..
Gamepass provides the instant gratification without having to fork out £40+ for the game. By the time its removed from gamepass they don't care because they've "beaten the game" (I hate that phrase for some reason) or got bored of it.

I'd be curious to find out the financials on PSNow, we know gamepass makes a small profit but from what they've said its quite insignificant.
 
So, here is the thing. The value from anything is what it means to you. For some now is going to be better.

But if we think more broadly - beyond what is our own taste this is what we see -

PSNow has more games by pure numbers
PSNow is cheaper.
PSNow gets a few new games in rotation.
there are big WWS games on it.
Sony have 120 million people with a console who could use it.
They have millions on PC who can at least use the stream stuff.

so how come then, with more games, more addressable users, lower cost, ‘better games’(the WWS stuff) and being at it longer does Now have ~3million subs but Gamepass has 15 million? in half the time?

If volume of users subbing is the overall metric of success of a sub offering, how has the ‘better’ offering which is also cheaper got very little traction with uses of such a long time?
I can only go by how I see it. Psnow has always been there if you want it. Its never been at the fore front for Sony. I was never interested in streaming and only looked at psnow once you could start downloading the games. Probably why Sony when looking at the numbers don't think its a viable option to put everything into a streaming service, but then they haven't been pushing it as aggressively at Microsoft does for gamepass. They need it to succeed. Sony still has that option going forward though and they can wait and see if its the right way to go. Next year they could announce first party titles as being available day 1 but if they are making money by selling games as they normally do its probably not going to change in the short term.
 
so how come then, with more games, more addressable users, lower cost, ‘better games’(the WWS stuff) and being at it longer does Now have ~3million subs but Gamepass has 15 million? in half the time?

If volume of users subbing is the overall metric of success of a sub offering, how has the ‘better’ offering which is also cheaper got very little traction with uses of such a long time?

I think the line is blurred between PS Now, PS+ and no subscription. My PS+ library grows each month and I'm still playing games from my instant collection. There's really a good list of big games in there now some of which I haven't seen hit other subs services and is one of the reasons I don't subscribe to PS Now atm.

Of course this is because I'm a long time subscriber, using cheap annual deals, but I'm sure others will be in the same boat. You also don't need PS+ for free to play online games, so a PS gamer has access to many games for zero extra cost and lots more via cheap subscription models.

I don't think anything is about 'better', Gamepass has been heavily invested in, both content and promotion wise and its paying off in spades. But that's irrelevant to someone buying into the PS eco system. If you have an Xbox or PC, Gamepass is undoubtedly worth at least a trial or picking up one of the great deals around.

Sony have introduced the game collection for PS5 PS+ subscribers, so the only investment and promotional change so far is in PS+. I think this will be the case for this year and next unless we get a PS Now announcement at some point.

But its a good question, why isn't PS Now gaining more momentum? I genuinely thought it was pants a few years ago. Then through my own interest spotted PS4 games were being introduced as downloadable content and its not until recently that I realised how extensive the catalogue is and nearly bit on the last £35 deal. Maybe Sony do try and push it, the icon and deals will crop back up on my dash from time to time, but maybe the early days of PS Now is still fresh in gamers minds..
 
So, here is the thing. The value from anything is what it means to you. For some now is going to be better.

But if we think more broadly - beyond what is our own taste this is what we see -

PSNow has more games by pure numbers
PSNow is cheaper.
PSNow gets a few new games in rotation.
there are big WWS games on it.
Sony have 120 million people with a console who could use it.
They have millions on PC who can at least use the stream stuff.

so how come then, with more games, more addressable users, lower cost, ‘better games’(the WWS stuff) and being at it longer does Now have ~3million subs but Gamepass has 15 million? in half the time?

If volume of users subbing is the overall metric of success of a sub offering, how has the ‘better’ offering which is also cheaper got very little traction with uses of such a long time?

I'll have a stab at that....

For me the value is simply new games coming to the service. I know every single XGS game will come day and date and I'll never have to buy another one. As an example, Gears Tactics at launch - is what £50 - so I'll play that for nothing. Same with (albeit not first party) but Destiny 2 beyond light - another thing I'd definitely have bought when it hit - £50 there. Over the summer I played grounded (and had a lot of fun) that would have been £25 to buy. But I got it day one early access for - 0 extra £. When Halo infinite comes out I will get that day one for £60/70.

Even if you take out Grounded which I'd probably not have bought - and arguably Gears Tactics till it went on sale - thats still say £120 value in a year.

And that's before you get to the games rotated in and out that I'll take a look at stuff I might otherwise not have played before....so in effect what PSNOW offers. This is a bonus on top for me. I've been playing Sniper Elite 4 recently thanks to Gamepass having not played it back in 2017. Also played Metro that way too.

So for me the inherent value is KNOWING that 23 Xbox games studios games across 35 development teams will all come out day one into my sub. I won't be interested in all of them but can play them all for £0 if I choose. And then on top of that the partnership deals like EA Play (saves me £4 a month), Destiny, and of course the standard selection of older titles. If it was just a backcatalogue of games I already own or hadn't been too bothered about on release....I'd not bother TBH.
 
If I have PSNow but also want to get new ps studio games in good time then I end up paying £60-£180ish per year on top of the PSNow price. On game pass I save that £60-£180ish. That’s the value gap.
 
If volume of users subbing is the overall metric of success of a sub offering, how has the ‘better’ offering which is also cheaper got very little traction with uses of such a long time?

So I think a couple of reasons. Gamepass has been more heavily promoted and also deeply discounted.

You can tell from this thread that people don’t know the value of PS Now, that’s just bad marketing. A decent marketing push could easily address that in a big way, so would offering a combined Now/Plus deal. And that’s even without sweetening the offering.

I also get the impression that Sony have been happy with steady growth on Now, which has trebled in subs since they reduced the price, because it has allowed them to keep the service very reliable. This isn’t as strategic to them so steady growth and revenue counts for a lot.

Xbox May have very high subscriber numbers, but that doesn’t mean it’s reflected in revenue. They got a huge lift in Gamepass numbers through $1 deals and very cheap upgrades from Gold, they've literally been giving it away, it’s literally been a no brainer if you had Gold already. It’s certainly a effective strategy for getting the service up and running and gaining mindshare. But the proof of the popularity will be in whether they retain those numbers when people switch over to a recurring subscription.
 
If I have PSNow but also want to get new ps studio games in good time then I end up paying £60-£180ish per year on top of the PSNow price. On game pass I save that £60-£180ish. That’s the value gap.

Is there even £180 of Xbox Studios games a year to play? 🤪
 

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