Early Look At PS Plus Premium Shows How It Compares To Xbox Game Pass

Looks pretty good. Not as good as game pass to me personally. I love day one first party and a ton of day one indie games. This is great for the new generation of gamers. I would of saved a ton of money in my youth if these subscription services existed 15 years ago. Knowing you can grab a console with a huge back catalog of new and old games is exciting.

Chances are the vast majority of the games that are already on PS Now will migrate over anyway unless they were due to expire before then.

@Zenszulu I’m pretty sure some will but I’m sure Sony is having to redo some of the contracts. There is no way with the new pricing model.

Know this is supposedly just a “selection” but I’m most disappointed in the classics portion of the list. Was really hoping for some more PS1/PS2/PSP games. We shall see.

Looks pretty decent and still around 300 ps4/ps5 games yet to be announced. Only thing missing to fully compete with gamepass is day one exclusives but sony won't add those, but even still well worth the price of the premium so far.

Especially for those new to playstation this gen, this would be the perfect subscription for them.

@mousieone maybe a few contacts but the vast majority of them I can't see being removed as they would have been paid for in advance until any previous contract expires so the publishers won't be losing out on funds.

@CrazyJF it is going to be interesting to see how sonys first party price hike for ps5 titles plays out now. Early ps5 adopters are most likely to pay whatever new exclusives cost - they’ve vocally defended the rise to £70 due to the message that it’s needed to ensure quality. As the ps5 install base grows and these games are placed on a subscription a year later I wonder how much of an impact that will have on their day 1 sales as we continue into this gen. I mean £70 titles in a subscription service already makes that subscription services look more attractive even if they’re not day 1…yet.

Personally I was definitely hoping that returnal being on here means I finally see that drop to a decent price in sales.

@SplooshDmg still 300 ps4/ps5 games to announce so knack 2 could still be on there, don't see a reason why not

I’d say that’s a very good looking list and should push xbox to keep improving their own service. I bought a PS5 at launch but ended up selling (at cost) because I was just so enamoured by gamepass, Ive had no real reason to pick one up since but i’ll definitely be keeping an eye out now.

@Zenszulu sure I guess. But I kind of feel like maybe that’s why they didn’t put the whole list out yet. Contracts etc

@mousieone more than likely they are just listing some key titles more than anything for now. As I said you don't have to renew a contract for a game that had already been paid for up until a certain dateI can imagine it's only sorting out the new contracts for stuff and maybe wanting to keep some stuff as a surprise rather than publishing a list of 700+ games weeks before it goes live.

Already bought demon souls and returnal and ghost of tshishma. All the others are pretty meh. Not massively interested in ubisoft cookie cutter titles. I probably wouldnt bother tbh... no 1st party means it's a miss for me

There are some good games in there. Not a huge fan of subscription model, I like to own physical copies of extremely dear games, but it's fine.. I'll try it out, just as GP..

@CrazyJF

@SplooshDmg I loved Knack II!

Looks good but my only issue is PS3 games can only be played via streaming.

@Halucigens you missed on out on the rental stores... we had a mom and pop rental store for vhs and games, they had a monthly service fee think it was 40$ a month but you got to rent whatever whenever you want up to two titles out at a time.... parents got it for me and my sister she got one i got the other, mine were always games, sometimes id rent three games in a day... example i can remember clearly, rented Jekyl and Hyde for the NES it was bad so i brought it back and left with the OG TMNT well i wasnt crazy about it so i brought that back and got myself Double Dragon 2... point is its been done before albeit differently but its great cause it saves you tons of money......if you can wait long enough to play the games right now totally enjoying NHL game that popped on GPU recently....

@SplooshDmg I still don't understand why it was such a sales disaster. It was a seriously solid family platformer-brawler on the most mainstream of mainstream consoles. How could it possibly fail that hard? I didn't platinum but I played multiple times to get close to 100%. It was jut fun to play.

@Clankylad Yeah, that's the same thing I said on Push, it definitely looks more aimed at new PS customers, an extension of the Plus collection idea, where you can catch up on the highlights of PS history on the cheap as a newcomer to the system. But for existing customers it doesn't really offer much.

Looks great for PS users - particularly those new to the ecosystem and/or those with less budget to buy many games a year so may of had to miss out on some over the years.

I do think its 'wrong' to compare to Game Pass because they are Different and have a different business model behind the companies driving those services. The best way to look at 'each' is what they offer to their ecosystem and in BOTH cases, they offer a LOT to their respective user base.

In both cases, these services offer anyone new to PS/Xbox, a curated library of games you can play. You can literally buy just the hardware and a Subscription and have a LOT of games to play - instead of having to buy a few games just to use your hardware. Also if you are new to the ecosystem/gaming in general, you have access to many games from the history of their platforms.

From my perspective PS+ Premium doesn't add much 'value' to me personally as I have played (and/or own) ALL the games that I would play. I'm sure that any 'new' releases on Playstation will be purchased at some point so by the time they do come to their subscription service, I will own them. That's part of Sony's Sales based Business model - get as much money as they can through Sales first and then put them into PS+ which also drives more media coverage/advertisement and reminds people that those games still exist to buy/subscribe for. NOT a criticism - its 'perfect' for Sony's business model and many Playstation gamers will get 'great' value from it too.

That's also why PSNow never appealed to me because by the time games I would play came to it, I'd already played them.

As I said, they shouldn't really be compared because if you only own a PS or Xbox, then it doesn't matter what the 'other' is doing. All that really matters is whether or not it offers you the 'value' you want and if so, its a no brainer.

Another advantage of these services is to those who may want a 2nd Console to play the 'Exclusives' they couldn't but don't really want to be spending a lot of money on Games to 'justify' getting a 2nd Console. This way, they can keep their main Platform for the majority (if not all) purchases and still have a great library of Exclusives on their 2nd platform

@SplooshDmg It explains skewed expectations, but still doesn't explain commercial failure. The game itself is very good, and is one of the few family games from their stable of studios these days. You'd think it would have had a good built-in audience, and the game actually being good would have created positive buzz. It's a weird failure of a game, because a really fun game, good production value/gfx, etc like that has no reason to fail that hard.

I’ve never owned a Sony console until now, so I’m looking forward to the Extra tier. The only exclusives I’ve played so far are the Spider-Man games

@BAMozzy yeah! That’s exactly how I see it. It’s an amazing fundamental package for folks new or getting familiar with Sony’s catalogue. There’s a lot of good value there, even without day one drops.

I’ve played so many of these games in repetition growing up, so I don’t think it’s for me personally, at least not now. But a very hopeful first look 👀 I’ll reserve my full judgement after everything has been revealed and released in June

I'm new to playstation this generation and there are a few games I don't own yet that I wanna try out. Returnal, death stranding and Demon souls aren't my type of game usually but at least I can try them out if I upgrade. Miles morales I almost bought but held out when I heard it would come to extra. Outside of those maybe I'll try concrete genie but that's about it, most of the exclusives I have in the ps plus collection anyways. What I am missing on the list are jrpgs. I know the list isn't complete but still. I'll upgrade my 6 month subscription to extra at least and will see after that if I keep it or not next to gamepass

The thing about Services is that you don't have to commit to them for the entire generation and can jump in/out as and when it makes sense for you to do so.

For example, if you are 'disappointed' that Starfield/Redfall won't be out this year and that 'nothing' else that's coming is of interest, you can cancel Game Pass and re-subscribe again when it makes sense to do so. I don't know how 'easy' that will be with Sony as its tied directly to PS+ but you should be able to switch up/down between tiers in my opinion.

Just because it doesn't make 'sense' to me right now, that doesn't mean PS+ Premium will never make sense to me...

Was already subbed to now for years, this seems fine and theres loads more to come. Good.
It wont stop me splashing the cash on new releases, but its def an option for those with less spare cash, so Im happy for everyone.
Whilst gp will likely always have an edge, even when theres no 1st party titles, the two services are broadly comparable and those of us gaming on all platforms are in for a treat...

@SplooshDmg I still don't get it though. The sales, or the metacritic scores. There was nothing groundbreaking about it, but it was better than the majority of family friendly platformers. I'd argue better than some of Nintendo's offerings over the last 6 years or so that garner far greater reception. The reaction to Knack never made sense to me.

Gravity Rush, one of the greatest games of all time IMO that was so excellent on so many levels, I can understand some of it's problem. DISMAL marketing. Terrible renaming in the west. DISMAL marketing. A bit "too Japanese" in some aspects. DISMAL marketing. Launched on DoA Vita. DISMAL marketing. Weeb appearance, and DISMAL marketing.

But Knack 2 really should have been an easy sell. I'm not sure I'll ever understand what went wrong.

@Blessed_Koz I had a blockbuster and a mom and pop in my small town. Renting games with two older brothers never worked out well for me.

@Lavalera
Concrete genie is a good and fun game so hope you will try it out.

@SplooshDmg LOL. PoE2 made a little more sense. Ultra-niche retro-ish game aimed at a particular fanbase of a particular old-school series of games that was never large to begin with seemed to evaporate after one outing.

Knack is literally a moving Pixar game on the most mainstream console with a built-in base that praises moving Pixar games...

Knack 2 failing is like Shrek 5 failing. It just wouldn't make sense.

I look forward to when they turn it into a must-have juggernaut of service. As of now I only find 3 games I’ve been thinking of giving a shot… others I already have or have no interest in. Time will tell!

@Neverwild oh I will. Its one of those games where if I see the trailers and gameplay footage it doesn't draw me in to buy it, but that's the biggest advantage of these game services you can try out a lot of games you otherwise would never have tried. Thanks to gamepass I found the Yakuza series for instance which became my favorite series after playing them on gamepass. So I hope I will like concrete genie as well

@SplooshDmg EVERY game should include ogres in the likeness of Shrek. BotW2? Shrek. Halo Infinite? Shrek mask, $20. GT7? Shrek car based on the real world value of Mike Meyers' face. Starfield? Planet Shrek. Days Gone? Could be saved with a Shrekcycle. Avengers? All it needs is Shrek. Smash? Mouth.

@SplooshDmg "There will be a donkey on stage as well. It'll be awesome."

Yeah, but Summer Games Fest just doesn't hold up to E3.... (ba-dum-tss!)

You had me at Shrek Dating Simulator. Seriously that is the single best video game ever imagined. Make it. Sell it to Phil. Pay Phil to take it. This game needs to be made right now!! I'll buy MTX, I'll subscribe. Cancel Starfield and Ragnarok, and Harry Plopper. This is the game of 2022!

@CrazyJF Isn't that how it pretty much always worked? Sony does permanent price cuts at times on games that don't sell anymore (TLoU2). And used to do deep sales, but doesn't do that so much anymore. MS occasionally did stealth price cuts. But generally everything digital is "full price" but is on sale every few weeks at deep discounts.

Mostly the "full price" thing has less to do with GP/Now, and more to do with not biting the wholesaler hand that feeds them on retail. It has to be 'full price" normally, unless they're also cutting the wholesale price.

Now, IDK, if sales are worse or less frequent for some titles due to GP, but so far it seems pretty consistent since 2018 or so.

@SplooshDmg Aww, Shreck it. I'm gonna' have to go full pony now. That's a whole games as a service platform right there. Forknife is doomed.

Literally every single PS5 game I have purchased so far is on the list 🤦🏼‍♂️ I haven't even played them all yet.. Time to sell some games, I guess 😑

one massive question that no one had answered yet will the sony exclusives leave the service after 90 days like the do currently on psnow ?

I think the issue Sony have here is that their customers have been purchasing their first party games anyway so what value is there on a service with lots of older first party games on? Over time it will work, as people hold off buying but for now which PlayStation player doesn't own all those exclusives?! They are literally the strength of the platform. Sony will have to put new games in the subscription day one down the line.

As someone who always gets both MS and Sony consoles I think I'll continue to do what I do now. Buy Sony exclusives only and stay on the lowest tier PSN sub and get everything else on Xbox as it's my primary platform.

Those sound like some great games. Some nice Playstation exclusives I'd like to play if I had a Playstation. Game Pass was a big part of me choosing to buy an Xbox over a Playstation or Switch as I can't afford to keep buying a bunch of games.

This new PS+ service would be a great backbone to entice people to pony up the money for an expensive console.

I'm pleasantly surprised with what's on offer so far. Been wanting Death Stranding, Valhalla, Returnal and Demons Soul and the prices just haven't been coming down anywhere near enough to buy them.
Obviously this article was written purely for click bait purpose to have people shoot it down but my take from this and GP is that I'll probably subscribe to each one separately. Not really any point to having Game Pass this year as nothing really being added to make it value for money while PS+ will give me a year of new stuff. Hopefully once I'm through these games I'll jump back onto GP with some new stuff to play there. Could work a treat for people who don't cut their nose to spite their face by picking sides.

@themightyant agree they need to consistently add more games rather than the meagre additions that they did with psnow. also sony stop removing your own exclusives off your own service after 90 days

I already got most of their PS4 games and the rest is just not a big deal to me.

One other thing is that you can’t do any of this without owning a console and that’s a big sell to those in tight budgets. If you have a good connection you can play so many Xbox games on cloud with any device. Overall I would say PSPlus isn’t close to being for the players!