As rumors circulate about Spartacus, a service from Sony that some are describing as a competitor to Microsoft’s Game Pass, others are left confused, as Sony already has a Game Pass competitor with PlayStation Now. PS Now made its debut before Game Pass, but the service has evolved drastically since then. Early PS Now experiences were not flattering, involving overpriced streaming rentals and complex hourly rates. Currently PS Now already works very much like Game Pass, as a low-priced subscription offering access to hundreds of games which can be downloaded locally instead of played only via streaming. Sony has done a poor job communicating the current state of PS Now, as many gamers, and even media outlets, still often refer to PS Now as a “streaming service.” It appears Sony has opted for rebranding, and complex tiered access packages, when what PS Now needed most was more visibility and better communication of its improvements.
Despite the fact that any newly released game is arguably a work in progress, with week one patches and fixes more the norm than the exception, first impressions are bizarrely vital in the gaming world. The initial consumer recoil to marketing plans for the Xbox One arguably haunted the console for much of its generation. Games like Fallout 76 have been significantly improved since the time of their launch, but to many gamers, the initial disappointment is all that is remembered. This seems to be the case with PS Now, as the service it has provided for the past few years is nothing like the version that came before.
PlayStation Now shifted from the convoluted and expensive streaming rental concept to a single, large library, accessed with a monthly fee of $10, or as low as $5 per month if an entire year is purchased at once for $60. The games on the service include a large number of PS4 games and several PS2 classics remastered for the PS4, and all of these are locally downloadable to a gamer’s PS4 or PS5 hard drive, letting PS Now function exactly like Game Pass with these titles. There are a many PS3 titles on PS Now also. Sony did not make backward compatibility with older generation consoles a priority with the PS4 or PS5, so these games are “streaming only.” The PS4 games also allow for streaming but local downloads provide a better experience for most users.
The Tiered Model Could Make PS Now Worse, & Rebranding Is Unnecessary
There is something to be said for a fresh start, but the best time to rebrand PlayStation Now was when the service first embraced downloadable titles and a superior value model from its prior incarnation. Rebranding at this stage simply confuses the matter, and the tiered option could make the service worse instead of better. Based on information from Bloomberg, the first tier of Spartacus may resemble the current PlayStation Plus, the second tier might add on benefits akin to the current PlayStation Now PS4 selection, and the third tier may add additional classics from legacy consoles, including PS3 games, which are already a part of PS Now.
This structure, if accurate, makes Spartacus a worse value than PS Now in several ways. Game Pass can be purchased as a standalone subscription or bundled with Games With Gold and the PC version of Game Pass through Game Pass Ultimate. Similarly, gamers can subscribe to PS Now on its own and forgo PS Plus, a favorable option given that PS Now games already include online play without the need for a separate PS Plus subscription. Forcing gamers to essentially subscribe to PS Plus as the first tier in order to access PS Now as a second tier is an inferior value to having PS Now on its own, which makes PlayStation Spartacus worse, not better. Further, removing PS Now’s PS3 titles and moving them to the “third tier,” along with other legacy consoles, also lessens the value proposition relative to PS Now’s current pricing and features.
PlayStation Now’s selection of downloadable PS4 games has featured many of the biggest names in first party Sony titles like Horizon Zero Dawn, Marvel’s Spider-Man and God of War, albeit as limited time additions to the service’s library. There is certainly room for improvement to truly compete with Game Pass, which offers day one first-party titles that remain evergreen on the service instead of temporary, and more generations of downloadable backward compatible classics. When asked how they will compete with Game Pass, Sony should present PlayStation Now as its already present answer and clarify just how the service has evolved and continues to grow. Rebranding as Spartacus, along with a convoluted multi-tier model, is not the solution.
