Talking Point: How Would You Compare The New PS Plus To Xbox Game Pass?

How would I compare them? Well, side-by-side of course. I’d probably list pro’s and cons.

Games with Gold has been dreadful for far too long

I haven't upgraded to PS plus premium yet. I just have PS plus essential. There are only so many hours in the day so I'll probably give it a try when my game pass expires at the end of September as I don't have the time to play both

I would say XGP is a bit better for sure. Sony needs to add more old stuff to the premium to make it really interesting. But Gold vs Plus Essential? Whoa, no competition for Sony. Brilliant offering there.

Views must be down this week ay? 😏

Aslong as playstation don't add exclusives day one then gamepass will always be better value, even more so when xbox actually get some exclusives released.

For third party content though I'd say playstation plus premium is better and have had solid additions so far.

For the monthly free games then there's no need to ask, playstation plus is miles better, if I was Microsoft I'd scrap games with gold.

About time Gold was ditched and they some how did something membership wise with game pass ultimate.

Go free live online for everything that would be massive kudos to Xbox

Then GPU top tier as now £130 per year.
Then GPU low tier, no day one releases £50 per year.

I have both and equally love both. I think it’s great Sony got in on the subscription scene.

GWG needs to be gone, like yesterday. Props to Sony for actually offering good free games.

In my opinion ps plus extra is the best the premium tier is a complete joke because there's been absolutely no effort put into getting classic games on the service but with Xbox I appreciate the fact they've been working the past 7 or 8 years to bring a good amount of backwards compatible games to the console

I upgraded to premium for now with the upgrade program but after this first period I don’t think I am going to be a PREMIUM member but lower my sub to the EXTRA tier. The addition of the Streaming ps3 games and ps1 / ps2 classics don’t do it for me. The ps3 streaming is something that I tried but never do again. It depends heavily on your connection , and mine is not the best , but streaming games just feels … “off” so I am only interested in the downloadable games.

PS+ Essential is a lot better than Games With Gold and with 360 games ending in October, Games With Gold will be even worse.

As for Game Pass, PS+ Extra and PS+ Premium I'd say PS+ Extra is the best of the bunch currently. Game Pass has been on the weaker side since April meanwhile PS+ Extra has been strong since its start in June.

PS+ Premium is the weakest of the bunch given the classic games collection is very limited and the PS3 games should be native. Also currently (though will be fixed in the future) there's the PAL mess for subscribers in regions like Europe that used to have PAL

Basic PS wins.

The new levels PS feels good because it is new to me but if I hadn’t played any games for the past 10 years the GPU wins easy for me especially with the EA Play games.

At the end of the day if you get good value from either you are onto a winner.

PS Plus(Essential) is better than Games with Gold on every level. It isn't even close.

Game pass is so much more mature than PS Plus Extra/Premium that it isn't really a fair comparison.

That being said, for me personally, PS Plus Extra is adding games that are interesting to me while XBGP has a huge library of games I have no interest in or already own.

Currently, I personally find more games I’m interested in at PS Plus than Gamepass.
I think it’s mostly due to the JRPG games. It makes it feel like PS Plus has more quality titles compared to Gamepass.
Gamepass feels more like an indie library, while PS Plus feels more like having more AA and B production level games.
But I guess there will be times it will be the opposite. Best to have them both I would say.

GamePass still rules because of new releases. When even “weaker” months have games like As Dusk Falls and Two Point Campus, I’m still a happy camper. I’ve always found a few new games each month that I enjoy. Was nice to see Stray on PS+ Extra, but if I were being honest, I didn’t really like the game much.

In any case, competition is a good thing!

PS put a lot of great older games on their service... if you have never played any of the old first party or old bangers, PS+ has so many classic games you should most definitely enjoy.

Xbox doesnt have as many old classic games, but it does have a lot! N Xbox has made the old games run better n look amazing compared to the original versions.That really makes the older games much more playable.
Xbox Game Pass cant even really sa that they include all 1st party games day one, until they actually get some out n on the service (besides Halo, Gears, and Forza).
But XGP has been excellent at adding plenty of 3rd party games... some day n date, n some just a few months old, either way they consistantly are adding good games twice a month!!

XGP is better than PS+, and also only costs $9.99 not $18 a month... For $15 a month on Xbox you get a game sub service on console and on PC and get streaming on Xcloud (which has gotten some major upgrades!!)
XGP wins on price, content, and future content

Monthly games is definitely ps+.
The service is definitely gamepass.
The legacy games within the service is definitely ps+.
The overall price/quality ratio including taking the GWG upgrade path into consideration is definitely gamepass.

Overall I’d say I prefer gamepass but I’ll see how both stack up in a year or 2 when the ps premium part of ps+ has picked up the pace with retro additions and the rumoured native ps3 emulation.

Lol imagine being so much of a console warrior that you voted for the games with gold over ps plus essential free games.

My Playstations stay offline.

There's not a single thing Sony offers that's better than a modded Playstation.

I feel the ps+ extra crispy tier, not the top one, is a good fit for ps. They don't have day one releases, but their older first party games more than make up for it. As for the tippity top tier, unless you have real nostalgia for the older games, seems a waste. And I say nostalgic because you have to be, in order to play games like syphon filter with its original control scheme.

Okay, I just found out how weird the ps subscription service is.
Ps+ essential gives you cloud saves, online play and free monthly games
Ps+ extra has a library of games you can download
Ps+ essential has a library of games that arent on the other tiers AND streaming
Weird how some games appear on essential but not extra. That would be like having games on gamepass console, be different than the console games in gamepass ultimate.

I’m subbed to both gamepass and ps extra.

Extra has a treasure trove of games there if you’re new to the PlayStation eco system. Most games have been carried over from PsNow.
The next gen offerings are pretty limited on extra. You’ve Returnal, Spider-Man miles morales, demon souls remake, and the directors cuts of death stranding and Ghosts of Tsushima, for first party offerings.

It’s a decent start. And the addition of stray releasing day 1 was welcomed.

It’s not all sunshine and roses though…

It’s nowhere near as intuitive as gamepass… in fact it’s pretty messy and confusing.
The first tab on the ps5 dashboard is the PlayStation plus extra tab. You click on it and there are 3 sub menus…
Latest - shows latest games…but also seems mainly used to try and sell you premium
Benefits - again, mainly used to try and sell you premium
Collections - this is where you can go through the different genres. This also has the ‘classics catalogue’ which is locked behind premium.
Games - which lumps together PlayStation extra and PlayStation premium games…meaning if you’re only on extra (like I am) you won’t be able to play some of these.

You need to be upgraded to premium to be able to stream games…so things like stay ect have to be downloaded first before you try if on extra.

I think extras first month, where they needed to have a huge content dump, was always going to be its strongest. It’s already apparent not as many games are going to get placed on it throughout a month as gamepass gets. And when you hear stories of gamepass paying so many millions for the likes of guardians of the galaxy etc…it’s hard to see how extra and premium are going to compete getting the newer AAA third party releases.
I think one day they’ll be forced to add day 1 first party releases.
I think it’s going to be interesting to see how extra and premium end up effecting the quality of plus going forward too. Right now it’s having a pretty strong month funnily enough.

I personally prefer gamepass. On a technical level it’s just more accessible, less confusing to what you do and don’t have access to. Offers streaming. Offers more content…and offers it more often.
But also they have the golden ticket of being able to offer AAA day 1 releases. Though we’ve endured the wait for them to properly capitalise on that promise, I don’t doubt they will, Sony are going to find it really hard to compete with gamepass

I'm reading through the comments and I can't seem to see anybody talk about Xbox Game Pass/Microsoft Rewards. Wondering if the fact you can get Game Pass for practically free per month (or use the points to buy other products) is not a strong enough perk of Game Pass, or perhaps not everyone is utilising it? Would be interesting to see how much value the Rewards add to users.

Gamepass no doubt about it.

I think a lot of people in here are basing the idea that ps+ is great off the last few months.

Let me assure you for 6 months a couple of years ago the games were dire. Similar to what we get with GwG. The one saving grace with GwG is you keep the 360 games forever wherever you are subscribed or not. Could be useful if we get power cuts in parts of Europe, have a few single player 360 games installed as backup. This Month with Tony Hawk it's great on PS+ tbh.

Please stop calling for GwG to be scrapped. On that service you get 4 games a month. If the games are scrapped they will disappear,
MS won't replace it with anything. It happened with Vita and PS3 games. 6 games dropped to 2 of sometimes terrible quality.

The new service from Sony is obviously good right now. Spiderman, Death Stranding and GoT are 3 of the best games from last gen. GoT was revamped for PS5 and is fantastic imo. Unsure what they can put up in the upcoming months, if GT7 and HZDFW show up, people will stop buying full price games. So it feels kind of top loaded and I don't know where they can go from here.

I pay for both services and I do have to say I like the Xbox game pass ultimate over the PlayStation Premium because the backlog of games that are on Xbox and Xbox has almost every original game, while PlayStation lacks a lot of the original games (such as most of the Ratchet & Clank games..)

I’m very happy w gamepass but to even ask who gives away better free games made me laugh out loud

Game pass ultimate is best but i think sony have done a good job with PS+ extra is cheap and provides good initial line up

Gamepass and its not even remotely close, not yet anyway

Sooo many players with both systems and both services … 🤓🤨

@themcnoisy "Please stop calling for GwG to be scrapped. On that service you get 4 games a month. If the games are scrapped they will disappear, MS won't replace it with anything"

Good. The game selection has been really poor lately, and since stuff like cloud saves and party chat are all free on xbox, it means people are paying just for that poor selection and online play.

People who are calling for GwG to be scrapped are happy to give up those games in favour of free online play, which is by far the bigger reason to pay for that service. And free online would be a big win for xbox owners and the xbox platform.

I don't know, maybe we could convince MS to take online play out of the gold subscription. So that we could make online free and you could be free to pay £50 a year for the GwG if you want. Kind of like how it all was on the PS3. But honestly, I think we all know (MS included) that without online play, those gold subs are going to drop to the point that Gold gets scrapped altogether anyway.

It’s early days yet for PS+ but so far I’d say GP is still better. GP has the obvious advantage of a lot more day 1 releases, and also you get 2 lots of games dropping per month, whereas PS+ only seem to be releasing one lot per month which makes it a longer wait.

@BartoxTharglod
Damn You are actually cheaper than I am!

LoL, I have been paying for my XGP Ultimate for over two years just by stay up on getting my daily MS Rweards points. I dont plan on leaving XGP anytime soon when I am getting it for free essentially.

I think there very similar personally. The big plus of Gamepass for me personally is that I'm able to subscribe to it and not pay thanks to MS Rewards, if that wasn't the case I wouldn't be subbed constantly just grab a month something I wanna play on there launches, I'm not going to continue with + when it ends.

The day & date first party games on Gamepass will be great when they start to properly roll out but as services there close. Both have a games I want to play but largely there full of games I've played, already own or have zero interest in at all & I'm not going to play something I don't want to play because it's "free".

There's a decent amount of cross over between them as well which is to be expected as there's only so many games.

Microsoft would have a huge advantage in putting their first party games on the service...if first party games ever actually came out. Game Pass is a solid value right now, but if Microsoft doesn't figure out how to get quality exclusive content (not just franchises they've purchased, games built FOR the Xbox series) onto the service in a timely manner, Sony will overtake them. They will find out that people are perfectly fine with buying good games when they come out.

@BartoxTharglod yes likely it is regional locked which is a shame, but I've read an article that Microsoft are expanding their rewards to more countries so hopefully you'll get more opportunities soon.

I've calculated back in January, that on average you can get at least 9490 points per month (UK) if you did every rewards activity (this may have changed since). That equates to about £70 per year via gift card or £95 via Xbox Gift card, and that's only a minimum.

I understand it can be a chore to go through some of the rewards activity, but I don't mind it personally. Most activities on Game Pass takes around 5 mins and allows me to try new games, and on the rewards website on IE or XB takes only 2 mins to do everything and I quite enjoy doing the polls or quizzes. Completely get though why people might see it as annoying, but I can't say no to £100 a year for 5 mins per day.

On the most part it’s really good. I wish Sony had more retro titles though.

It’s chalk and cheese for first party titles though. Forza and Halo have become service level games with weekly updates and seasons designed to keep the subs rolling in whereas the likes of God of War and Horizon are big slices of single player stories and add nothing to a sub beyond a cheaper way to play them.

I thought they were not hugely dissimilar even before the relaunch of ps plus.
Once ms has some first party output again, in terms of outright value gp will remain the superior product. But right now it really doesnt feel it unless you are really into indies on day 1. For my tastes, ps has a better offering right now.

Whilst gp's unrivaled dominance was once undisputed, thats no longer the case and I read a comparison on kotaku of the two services just this week, where the two writers both concluded psn was the stronger service. Right or wrong, this is a huge shift in the narritive that gp trumps everything...

@RadioHedgeFund lol, Halo keeping subs rolling in?
It has less player count than Battlefield 2042 most of the time, and thats an uncontested disaster zone. How on earth can you say Halo is attracting subs? The evidence shows it cant even attract players from those already subbed, never mind attract new subscribers.

Honestly, even on the first party drought we seeing this year, I would not be subscribed to game pass if they were not offering first party games day one.

By the time first party games hit psn extra, they been on deep discount several times if not permanently.

As for gold vs psn+ free games, neither offers anything worthwhile almost ever.

Won't renew PS+Extra when it ends in October for me. As it is now it's nice to have the same library as your friends but yeah… Haven't found enough gems yet. I hope they enhance it though and change my mind before I leave. Played a fun Tetris-like (Tricky Towers) and a great cat simulator, but yeah… most other games I've either played already or found no interest in. Will keep pouring time in their walking simulator (so far I prefer Firewatch over Death Stranding), but it feels like I waste time doing something boring just for seeing the cutscenes. Game Pass gives me so much more. Will probably keep PS+Essential though.

Both are fantastic, each has its pros and cons but I'm very happy with the new Plus thus far and it'll only get better. Between the 2 my actually game purchases will probably be reduced to maybe 2 or 3 a year vs dozes which is great for us. Looking forward to seeing both grow and evolve in the future!

@electrolite77 I think the point is that I, and many others, can afford our gaming habits without having to dance to the tune of a multinational corp.
For those that wish to take advantage, its great. But I choose what I play and when I play it, what search engine I want to use etc, and Im happy not to have my choices erroded by having to conform to anyone elses vision of how they want me to act, or what tgey want me to play.

The advantage of the day 1 first party games for game pass is so overblown, at least right now.

@Titntin @RadioHedgeFund Halo Infinite MP is also F2P. A sub to game pass, and even gold, is just not required.

@Richnj Thanks for pointing that out! Theres absolutely no question it wont be driving subs of course...
I would wish otherwise, Halo deserves more imo.

There is not even a contest here. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is off in a different universe. Sony have made some welcome changes but when it comes to Game Pass it is so accessible, it gives everyone a chance to play great games for a great price. At a time when money is at a premium for many of us, GPU is so far ahead of the rest.

If I'm honest, PS Plus beats it on both fronts. Essential is just way way better than Games with gold, but I feel like that is on purpose by MS. Extra/Premium vs Game pass is closer, but I give PS a win for a bit higher quality offering.
All of this can change, and by the end of the year this comment might look laughable..

This is so easy to decide ... GET BOTH

I subscribe to both but can't take the PS offering seriously until they fill out the pre-PS4 library quite a bit. Right now it's a joke.

I hate that Sony puts the PS Premium tag on games that are not in the service... You can try them but they are not in the service. You have to search online to see whats included, just as confusing as the rest of the communication this generation.

Best way I can put it, I'll re-up my Game Pass sub when the time comes. Right now, resubscribing to PS Plus Premium when I have to in January is very much in doubt.

Lol what a poll

August is a good example of why I prefer GamePass over PS+ Extra. Just Two Point Campus, Midnight Flight Express and Immortality are fantastic day one adds. PS+ is only adding a bunch of older games that I already own.

Mmm...let's see.

For me, right now, it is Game Pass, simply because it has more games I want to play (Dead Space, Fable, etc.).

But I think GP delivers a better "user experience". The UI is better and easy to use, it is constantly telling you about the new games arriving and the ones that are leaving...

Plus+, on the other hand, has started with a confusing UI, and the Premium Tier is a joke. The selection of games is strong, I confess, and there is room for improvement.

If Sony works on it, it can have a very good subscription service, just like MS worked on Game Pass over the years.

@BartoxTharglod
"I earn $60 an hour"... lol nice not so humble brag guy.
And me spending 5 minutes a day and getting paid in git crds to play games is how I choose to pay for XGP Ultimate.

I went to medical school n work at a hospital and do just fine myself. It doesn't matter how much money you make, having the opportunity to get XGP by playing games daily is awesome! I love that that is a thing... and I love that people like you would rather pay cash, that keeps it viable for MS to let us pay with rewards points

@Dezzy70 I have to disagree for one basic somewhat unknown reason. You can easily buy 3 years of Live Gold cheaper than Game Pass and you can convert it all to Game Pass. Just let your current subscription lapse.

@iplaygamesnstuff
Of course there are the tricks of the trade.
I’m banked up on GPU until March 2025, so that’s me sorted.