PlayStation Reportedly Creating Xbox Game Pass Competitor, Set To Arrive Spring 2022

Could be intresting

If it doesn’t allow you to download games and only has streaming for most of them, it’s still a hard pass. If they have emulation that lets you download, that’s a different story. Will need more details.

Competition is always welcomed.

indeed competition is always good, bring it on. ,

As someone who has both series x and ps5 I am very happy about this. I hate having to get out my old fat ps3 for old games I already own. I just hope it is downloads and not streaming only.

I'd love it if I could stream PS exclusives through the browser on my Series S.

Great news for gamers. When one platform does something awesome others will need to catch up. Sony raised the game with PS4 and I’m glad Microsoft is now doing the same.

I criticised Sony for pulling a Nintendo and locking its legacy titles behind a service paywall with tiers, but can I actually note that it is consolidating its two services (albiet with said tiers) and that is something MS should be doing with its two services.

Hopefully this gives Xbox the push it needs to drop gold, fold GwG in to GP and make online play free.

I rarely game on PC, but if this is real and ends up there I'd give it a shot.

Edit: the current rumor doesn't mention PC. Since I don't have a PS4/5, I'm good. Hope everyone who'd want this gets their wish.

If it doesn’t allow down loading of all the games
Like gamepass then it’s no good to me or real competition to gamepass.

Hah! I recently said in a post that I'd pay double to have both PS and Xbox games on Game Pass. If priced correctly and available via streaming through a browser I might bite.
Edit: forgot to add- if it's available where I live, as PS Now still isn't 🤣

It needs to allow game download otherwise pointless

About time they step up to the plate.....took too long if you ask me, but glad its on the horizon

Still no day 1 games and its only Streaming from what ive been reading and hearing.

Microsoft still winning

I thought the ps5 can't play older games, the console doesn't have the hardware to run them like xbox does. You can only stream older titles. So how would this work? If its just streaming older titles and downloading Playstation 5 games then how this any different to playstation now?

Game streaming? So it's exactly the same as their current PS Now service which lets you play old PS3 games, only they are expanding it apparently.

I think Nintendo did a good job when it comes to how they're offering old N64 games, they just all downloaded in an app/game and you can just play them right off your device. It's nice to not have to stream anything.

Outside of that, I think Microsoft has the best approach with letting you download whatever classic games you like. If I had to stream everything, I wouldn't even bother.

@JayJ yeah I don't understand how this is different to what they already have? It's literally just Game streaming, there's no ps5 day 1 titles. So how's it different to the current Playstation now Service?

If they offer new exclusives day one then I'd wager it Will become bigger than gamepass in no time, then it will be down to who can get the most/biggest third parties to their service first.

As much as I like gamepass I don't want it to be the reason we see a streaming future, and both ps now and gamepass "Have" to keep the download to console feature.

I see this more of a competitor to NSO than Gamepass lol.. This will not come close to gamepass..

@Chaudy that's my concern if they don't include day 1 games.. it will never be as popular as game pass and the longer they wait the harder it is wedge into a market

@uptownsoul First off they never mentioned any downloading or the games being natively playable, and second PS Now has always been a strictly streaming-only service, you have never been able to download games off the service.

@Chaudy playstation already offer downlaod to console for ps4 titles, it's just streaming for ps1, ps2 and ps3

@JayJ that's false as every ps4 title is able to be downloaded

@UltimateOtaku91 Well then you aren't using PS Now, it sounds like you are confusing it with PS Plus.

Kind of curious how this will go down with claims Sony's work environment being similar to Activision's.

@JayJ no, go and check before making assumptions

Competition baby. It sounds a bit lacking still but hopefully it puts a bit of pushback on Gamepass and they continue making it awesome.... maybe even have a sale on their 3 month cards in Canada!?!?

@UltimateOtaku91 No need to, PS Now is strictly a streaming service. I would advise educating yourself on products and services before you try to tell people off on them.

@UltimateOtaku91 so with this service will they be allowing download for pre-ps4 games as well then?

@JayJ wow can someone else care to explain that ps now ps4 games can be downloaded onto the ps4 and ps5

@UltimateOtaku91 Here, I did a quick two second Google search, this is from Sony's official website and how they advertise it themelves:

https://www.playstation.com/en-us/ps-now/

As you can see it's an "On Demand" gaming service, aka streaming. The only place they mention downloading is for a select group of PS4 titles. Nowhere do they make any indication of PS1, PS2, or PS3 titles being downloadable.

@Chaudy doubt it, probably still just be streaming older games, they seem to lazy too want to put in the effort

@UltimateOtaku91 ah okay cool thanks

@JayJ this is also off playstation nows website,

"Can I download from PS Now onto my PC."

"No. PS Now games can only be downloaded to the PS5 or PS4 console."

Don't forget that Sony's streaming is using Microsoft Azure (last I read) so if they were to up that service and use more bandwidth, that'll cost them, and it'll be a nice 'side' win regardless for MS.

@UltimateOtaku91 "If they offer new exclusives day one then I'd wager it Will become bigger than gamepass in no time".

I really doubt it. Most first-party games didn't sell that much on PS4. The console was super popular but because of third-party games, mostly. I mean, yes, of course Sony can do it but it won't necessarily become bigger than Game Pass.

@Bmartin001 whats NSO?

@UltimateOtaku91 So where do they say they are going to offer PS1, PS2, and PS3 titles downloadable? I never saw that. According to all press releases this is all going to be streaming only.

@JayJ I only said ps4 games can be downloaded, I never said ps1, ps2 and ps3 games could

Great news for those who own a Ps5. If they offer something as great as GP, maybe I consider buying a pS5 at some point.

@Chaudy This is the important thing. This report suggests that Sony is rebranding their offering. It seems that they will have PlayStation Plus and PlayStation Plus + Cloud with different tiers (PS1, PS2, PS3, PS4 and PS5). It's likely that the PS1, PS2 and PS3 will be streaming-only and only PS4 and PS5 will run on the hardware. It's like PlayStation Plus absorbing PlayStation Now with different tiers. It also reflect recent Sony's statements about monitoring what Nintendo was doing with their pricing.

@PapaGlitch Point is you can download and own whatever original Xbox or Xbox 360 titles you like on Xbox, but on PS Now it has always been streaming-only for games. I know they offered PS4 compatibility, as that has been a big selling point for the PS5 so far, but that has nothing to do with this announcement.

@BlueOcean well that depends on which game, God of war, horizon zero dawn, the last of us, spiderman and uncharted have all sold over 10 million.

Well either way if both companies have a gamepass experience then I'd be happy as the only games I'd ever have to buy again are those from nintendo.

@BlueOcean but again how is that different to Playstation now currently? As far as I understand the Playstation now service is streaming only for ps1,ps2 and ps3 games because of hardware limitations. Whereas you can download ps4 games straight to the console. It seems like all they will do is change the pricing and introduce a tier system. It doesn't really sound like any changes are coming to actual service. Unless they implement download for all Playstation games and day 1 ps5 games, it's not really a competition for game Pass.

Also sony have Microsoft to be thankful if this is is true as they will be using Microsofts azure servers which so far have been pretty good

Watch this be inferior to Gamepass yet get so many more subscribers just because it’s Playstation.

For me, it would be good if (assuming I had a PS5 which I don’t) they had day 1 releases on it. And that older classics were downloadable. PS1, PS2 and PSP are cool but not sure how many of them I would actually want to play. Will they upscale them like Xbox does? PS3 might be okay for a bit of Trophy Hunting but if it’s streaming like it is now then forget it.

@Chaudy I get what you’re saying. I’m not seeing a difference myself besides branding etc, unless they implement downloads across the board and day one releases as you said.

@UltimateOtaku91 Yes, short one-player games that people played once. That doesn't necessarily make a subscription service a massive success.

@Chaudy tbh I don't think sony are going to change anything, realistically I see this as a reason to merge ps plus and ps now together, there won't be a ps now option, just a ps plus with different package tiers in which tier one will offer the usual online play with the month free games, tier 2 will be more expensive but also offer ps now streaming only, and tier 3 which will offer ps4 downloads and maybe movie streaming (which they are trialing in certain countries)

@UltimateOtaku91 yes that's exactly how I understood this, it seems like a change in the business model rather then the actual service the consumers are getting

@BlueOcean sony don't care if they are single player one and done games though as they still get millions of buyers

I love gamepass so if this will be the same for playstation Im all for it. Now if only Nintendo would so the same. Lol.

This sounds a lot more like the way Nintendo Online is doing it than Game Pass.

Lol! Didn't Xbox get totally dumped on incessantly for trying to merge Game Pass and Live Gold? Watch this now be celebrated as a great thing, because Sony is doing it...

@UltimateOtaku91 My point is that God of War Ragnarok and Horizon Forbidden West won't necessarily make PS Now bigger than Game Pass in no time as you say.

@BlueOcean well I didn't mean straight away and not with just those titles, maybe within a year or two once they have had chance to release more new titles and add all previous first party titles.

Though from what I've read I don't think it's going to happen anyway

@UltimateOtaku91 You literally said "If they offer new exclusives day one then I'd wager it Will become bigger than gamepass in no time".

@JayJ fair enough and not having a go, just your original posts made it sound like you were arguing the service is exclusively streaming only, which is a common misconception.

The announcement (or leak) certainly leaves more questions than answers, as the service already offers streaming legacy titles. It seems to me there is a possibility of emulation (although it seems unlikely for PS3), but we'll have to wait and see. Most likely the real change will just be Sony actually putting some effort into it and expanding the library. I anticipate they still won't be adding their big tent pole titles day 1 but perhaps after 6 months or so... Anyway, time will tell. Doubtlessly I'll subscribe, as I already do to PS+, Now, NSO Expanded and GPU and never actually get round to playing enough to actually get my money's worth like I do with all of them, as I'm a massive sucker!

@BlueOcean well by "no time" I didn't mean over night. Just figuratively speaking

It's strange how Sony don't leverage their vast back catalogue of games. Nintendo are managing to dripfeed really old SNES and N64 games for a monthly fee.

@Trmn8r no, MS got dumped on for trying to raise the price of Gold in order to force people into buying GPU...

@Chaudy Yep and I was agreeing with you. Basically, they are turning PlayStation Now into tiers and making bundles with PS Plus. They are remarketing PlayStation Now but if PS1, PS2 and PS3 are streaming-only and new exclusives are not included day one, it's exactly the same thing they have now. I think this is related to what they said about monitoring Nintendo's pricing which basically means milking fans in different ways, with different tiers. Hopefully, it won't be as pricey as Nintendo's N64 emulation (Nintendo's pricing and Sony "monitoring" Nintendo is why I used the verb "milk").

@BlueOcean that's what I'm struggling to get my head around, but you must remember this is a leak, not an announcement. I assume when it is announced officially, and going forward the difference will be that they actually support it in a meaningful way, unlike how they have with Now

@PapaGlitch I know but this is the comments section about that leak so all we can do in here is speculate 😁. Bloomberg is quite reliable, though.

@BlueOcean You Can Already Download Some PS2 Games On PS Now There Isn't Many But Like The PS4 Games They Can Be Both Streamed And Downloaded.

@BlueOcean yes thats what I understood as well. Seems like a business model change rather then actual service.

@Areus That was exactly what I was going to say, that there are PS2 games available on PS4 but unfortunately just a dozen or so when I checked and most were mediocre (except for the GTA games). I always wondered why there weren't more.

@Chaudy They want to get rid of PlayStation Now brand and sell PlayStation Plus tiers. @uptownsoul Yes and it's also very funny because Sony said recently that people don't care about backwards compatibility and all that "next generation" thing.

@PapaGlitch It was pretty well known at the time that merging them was the end goal however and that was resoundingly rejected as well. The price increase approach was a bad one, deserving of the outcry. And now you'll prob see PS attempt a similar goal through this tier method and will be sung praises for it. But, as I said in a previous comment, this seems to look closer to the Nintendo Online approach (especially, if it's a tier system) than Game Pass.

@uptownsoul Yep but the topic is Sony and they are doing exactly the opposite of what they said they'd do on PS5: cross-generation games instead of next-gen exclusives, PC ports, backwards compatibility...

I seriously will not be holding my breath for this one, and giving Sony’s history it will be incredibly poor value next to Game Pass and won’t work very well at all. Sony literally doesn’t have the money to offer games in the same way Game Pass does, not that they would offer any variety seeing as all of Sony’s games are over the shoulder carbon copy story simulators anyway.

@BlueOcean it's all down to customer backlash and fear of losing customers which results in losing money, people have been complaining to sony and now they are scared they will lose customers, hence why they reversed their decision on taking away the ps vita/ps3 store.

@Trmn8r Nintendos approach is purely designed to maximise profits up front, they have rightly been totally slammed for their stupid weak poor value offerings, I expect Sony will be praised from the hills as Gods gift to gaming if they did exactly the same as Nintendo because that’s how biased the media is with them.

I just can’t wait for the Gamepass hating Sony fans to tell us how sustainable and profitable their service will be. Should be a laugh.

@UltimateOtaku91 They were also about to charge customers twice for first-party cross-generation bundles such as Horizon Forbidden West. What you say is good but they made fun of Series X/S saying that Sony will make next-gen games only possible on PS5 and now almost all of them are coming to PS4 (and even PC!) and have been delayed indefinitely. The problem with Sony it's the horrible CEO.

@BlueOcean that I agree on, Sony would be better off without Jim Ryan and is something I wish to happen every year lol Nintendo had their reggie, xbox have their Phil, still waiting for Sony to get someone who can take them up a level

@UltimateOtaku91 Phil plays games to have fun, and plays them with his kids for fun, Reggie also seemed to play them for fun, but certainly appreciated them.
Ryan seems the sort of guy who would only play a game to come up with some metaphor to use in his boardroom meeting the following day.

@S1ayeR74 Ryan is the new Trump.

@S1ayeR74 that's my hate with Jim Ryan, he's purely a businessman who's sole focus is money and doesn't care about the players, whereas Phil is a businessman and also a gamer who listens to what the fans want first.

I'd be more happy with shu at the helm

@UltimateOtaku91 Off-topic but Nintendo have also become a pure business lately. No more Miyamoto or Iwata magic, just figures and numbers.

@BlueOcean yeah I've noticed it's always when a system sells very well, the switch has sold very well and turned Nintendo cocky and all they see is dollar signs, Sony are also the same with how well the ps4 sold, made them cocky and think they can do anything

This is great news! As a PlayStation gamer before Xbox came along, I hope they flood the service with ps1 and ps2 games with enhanced visuals and hopefully make their first party games available for as long as you’re a subscriber like GamePass does with Xbox games. I want to play Clock Tower 3 and Haunting Ground in HD!

I think some people are unfamiliar with what PS Now currently offers. Originally it was pure trash. It was obscenely expensive and did nothing but stream PS3 games. After Game Pass came along, they slowly improved it. They added the ability to download PS4 (and 5 eventually) games locally, and cut the price substantially. It's decent and cheap but the large game library is often an old game library. Still for modern (PS4/5) games it already has download, and the new rumored middle tier with only PS4/5 games doesn't even include streaming (like GP without GPU.) So mostly what it sounds like they're doing is locking the existing PS3 games behind the top tier now, but adding PS1, 2, PSP (no Vita?). PS3 will almost certainly need to be streamed still. PS1, 2, and PSP though, who knows.

@BlueOcean @UltimateOtaku91 Sony had Kaz, but since he retired, it's the march of the generic suits and speculators... .

It does seem to be the pattern though. As soon as they have success, the board elects pure numbers guys, and the companies go pure gold diving and lose the soul that made them popular to begin with. Then the arrogance eventually destroys them, and they have to find a leader that understands the market.... Nintendo and Sony doing it at the same time makes it rough though.

@uptownsoul What Now does that irritates me to no end is when they have PS3 versions without PS4 versions of games, meaning it's both the worse version, and you can't download it. I hope they at least improve that. That and actually supporting wireless controllers on PC so we can party like it's 2007. And actually supporting DS5 on PC... which still is inexplicable. They're bringing their games to PC and haven't even managed to bring their own controller to PC in their own subscription service.

@Richnj Branding aside MS technically consolidated already with GPU. They still sell Gold separately even though they don't want to (sounds like the base PS++ tier), they sell GP without Gold (a different tier than Sony's middle tier which seems kinda uninteresting), and GPU at the top tier the product is already combined, so not so different there.

@Royalblues I don't think they will but one thing that DOES hurt Sony's coffers is used game sales which hit them hard due to that one and done nature of a lot of their games. There's that loose possibility they see the potential of recurring subscriptions offsetting the used game losses as MS does. I'm not too hopeful though.

@Kingleo31 I don’t think so. For older titles; it’s going to be how it now. See MS sells the BC titles. Sony doesn’t. There is very little revenue for them to do that.

@electrolite77 yeah it’s a combing and expansions of the current tiers. Technically the PS+ collection offers you 20+ games. The question is how third parties on PS Now are going to respond. I can’t see them wanting to stay in the service like they do now without contact updates.

@Chaudy Nintendo Switch Online

@John117
Totally agree, the only reason I have gamepass is for the day one releases like recently PN 2, FH5 and Halo Infinite and the rest in the future. Also the extra studios they now have.
Without that it would be worthless and a waste of money for me.

@NEStalgia That's true. I just think branding and free online matters when it comes to the casual market.

And I think between game sales, Game Pass, and (reluctantly) microtransactions, are more than enough revenue streams, and are strong enough to justify dropping gold and the online pay wall.

@NEStalgia Exactly, PlayStation Now was (is?) rubbish, you could only play the PS3 version of The Last of Us which is worse and can't be downloaded and they removed God of War. There was some potential with PS2 games because PS4 is able to run at least some PS2 games but that is anecdotal for Sony and the selection was awful.

If it's emulating PS1, PS2 and (maybe) PS3, and allowing local running of all games, they might have something cool. We've seen these services on the good side (Game Pass) and bad side (Nintendo Online), so let's see what Sony can do. I'm prolly in the XBox camp for life since I've been with them since the original, but we'll see.

i see this and hope it causes MS to lower its gamepass ultimate price a tad or allow me to buy a yearly sub....

Good luck Sony, your going to need it!

The only way Sony can compete with Game Pass is to put PS exclusives on there on day 1. Sony won’t do that as it’d cost too much money. Most PS AAA exclusives sell millions more than Xbox exclusives ever have.

Seems to go against their model.

@BlueOcean It was REALLY rubbish until 2018. It's a good value service now, but that's just it. It has a LOT of warts right now. For streaming, the lack of controller support on PC, lack of 1080p on PC, lack of mobile support at all. For local play it's the streaming only issue for PS3, and the library being on the aged side. . But it's also much cheaper than gp so for the money is a good value now, if not a top shelf service. But I can't tell from these rumors of they're really enhancing or much other then more legacy that may or may not be streaming only, and if they'll break the good value of they're not. That middle tier actually offers less than the current Now, without PS3 or streaming, so if it's not a good deal cheaper than current plus+now, it's not a new service it's just a massive price increase. Otoh, they could challenge Ms by making that the same price as Plus and dropping the price of the basic plus (without free games) tier or make that free. Ms would have to respond to that.

@Richnj Definitely, but I get that the paid online is such a staple feature that pays huge, so I get their reluctance. Right now everyone playing the top games, which is probably most of their casual install bases HAS to pay. Eventually once they can convince everyone to subscribe to gp anyway they can move past it, but that cod/battlefield etc money must be huge. Not huge like it was since dropping the f2p pay wall though.

I don’t think this is going to look as much like GP as NSO as others have said. Sony doesn’t have the money to compete like that and doesn’t necessarily need to. Sure they want a competitor to GP but they also don’t make money that way

That said they definitely need a combined plus and now tier and a rebrand.

As someone who also owns a PS5, this is potentially great news.
I just hope it's more than just combining PS+ and PS Now and calling it something else.
I'm not expecting day one exclusives, but if they launch this with the likes of Spiderman MM, Demon's Souls, Returnal, Sackboy etc, and set a foundation to add exclusives 6-12 months after launch, then I'd happy sub and make my PS5 more relevant to me.

I like quite a few of PS exclusives. But I don't have a PS5. Why? Because I would never pay 79 euros for a damn game. If Sony makes a service like Gamepass and have all their games on it, then I will gladly buy a PS5.

Pleased to hear this.

Firstly competition is good.

Most importantly, I can keep my PS4 Pro and stream PS5 games, no new console required, at least until there are enough must play exclusives for me to get one.

If their streaming is good enough I might not even get a console until it's had a couple of price cuts.

@NEStalgia I remember Sony dropped smart TV (Bravia) PS Now support as well and that only DS3 controllers worked and that annoyed me because I only had DS4 controllers.

@Royalblues Yeah, I think that's one issue they might have. Once I played everything I wanted I'd be out. GP keeps you locked in with Forza, Halo, Flight Sim, Sea of Thieves, Grounded, Starfield, etc. I don't want to buy all that stuff...nor do I want to lose access to it!

This isn’t new though it’s just a rehash of a 7 year old failing product. It needs improving but as for GamePass it can rest easy.

@FraserG
Over on another post we all wondering where the
Halo Infinite campaign pre download is.
Us with slow internet thinking we won’t be playing on release date at this rate.
Any ideas?

@JayJ there are over 300 games on PS now that can be downloaded.

@electrolite77 see I don’t think they’ll do anything. I do feel Sony sees what Nintendo is doing with the legacy stuff and wants to emulate that. I think Jason used Game Paas competitor in the article as a headline and because the combined tier of Plus and Now would kind of be that. (I mean honestly just combining and rebranding should help there) But I really think they see how Nintendo is selling old emulated titles for 5 dollars a month now as it’s own tier.

Edit: but I don’t think they’ll enhance their legacy titles like MS does. That’s a lot of work and you can’t run the games without the sub service

@JayJ you can download PS4 games on PSNow 100%.

Sounds good to me. It doesn't need to be a GP competitor but can exist in the same space.

@JayJ I don't think you know what "streaming only" means.

About ***in' time.

@FraserG yeah, this whole thing is weird. I guess it's just better to hear it from the horse's mouth before I feel anything.

Great if true, and as said above, competition breeds innovation and value.

if its streaming only, well its DOA as playstation NOW biggest issue was it was laggy AF unlike gamepass....i have rrecently tried both on the same connection and gamepass is by far way better of a experience....so if they dont upgrade the system the new service just wont take off past ps5 users... but hopefully this will cause MS to lower their price some.

lol i have the opposite view of a lot of people i guess, but i HOPE you can stream the games to PC at least. i'm not super interested in most of Sony's games anymore (it's a personal thing, as i generally dislike cutscenes, and sony LOVESLOVESLOVES nice long cutscenes), but there are a few like Horizon that i would like to try without having to buy a PlayStation i would barely use...