Playstation Plus and Now, how could they evolve in the future?

Playstation Plus and Now

In its position of clear advantage over the competition, Sony is testing the waters with its services related to the Playstation universe. Born in the now distant era Playstation 3, when consoles juggled for the first time with the internet connection, Playstation Plus and Playstation Now today have reached a very high level of maturity and popularity. Despite this, their future could hold several evolutions, especially following the aggressive moves made by the competition in the field of services. The Game Pass is becoming a strong workhorse for Microsoft, but we cannot neglect the cloud gaming services offered by Google, Amazon and Nvidia either. The market is competitive, so as consumers we can only be happy. While Microsoft has very clear ideas about the future of the Game Pass, Sony still seems to want to experiment in search of the winning formula. How could Playstation Plus and Playstation Now evolve in the future?

Experimentation

Playstation Plus and Playstation Now logos In recent months there has been a clear demonstration of how Sony wants to test the waters with its services. In particular, the Playstation Plus has received specific attention since the release of the Playstation 5. To make the generational shift less abrupt, Sony has introduced the Playstation Plus Collection, taking advantage of the excellent backwards compatibility feature of its new gaming machine. This collection of software includes about twenty truly excellent titles, belonging to the Playstation 4 era. Each owner of a brand new Playstation 5 can therefore recover or rediscover some of the most loved video games of the last generation, simply by subscribing to the Playstation Plus.

Sony recently tried to experiment again with the Play at Home initiative linked to the ongoing pandemic. This time, without even having to subscribe to the Playstation Plus, the Japanese company has made nine video games available to its users completely free of charge. The goal is to make us stay home safely to limit the spread of COVID, spending time in company with our beloved video games.

Last March Sony also gave away an exclusive Playstation 4 of a certain thickness, before it could turn one year after its official release on the market. We are clearly talking about Final Fantasty VII Remake, a wonderful video game, well received by both critics and the public. This is an important addition to the Playstation Plus, which is similar, in a sense, to the business model used by Microsoft with the Game Pass. Sure, it's not the same as getting every launch day exclusive video game on Xbox's subscription service, but it's definitely a way to experience player interest and reactions to these kinds of promotions and services.

Playstation Plus in the future

Considering this experimentation by Sony, we can hypothesize that the Japanese company does not yet have completely clear ideas on the management of its services for the future. We do not yet know if initiatives such as Play at Home will return, or if the Playstation Plus Collection will actually be enriched in the future with new titles or if the exclusive Playstations will arrive earlier among the free games offered by the Plus. market, that of video games in general, in continuous evolution where every new technology and service could generate big revenues in the future.

Games included in the Playstation Plus Collection for PS5 Wanting to try to make some anticipations on what awaits us in the next few years, we can expect the Playstation Plus Collection to be maintained and expanded as soon as the Playstation 5s are back available for purchase. The news of this enrichment of the collection will perhaps incentivize other players to abandon their Playstation 4 in favor of a new generation console. In the same way it would create a small catalog of titles, certainly not comparable to that of Game Pass, to be played without going to spend additional money following the purchase of a console. Following this trend, Sony could also decide to slowly add its exclusives coming out on the Plus, directly in the Collection. For example, Final Fantasy VII Remake could be part of this collection now that it has made its debut on the Playstation Plus. There are still many exclusive releases on the Playstation 4, which could arrive for free on the Plus and then remain present in the Collection. For example we can mention Uncharted: the lost legacy, Spider-Man, God Of War, Death Stranding and why not, even The Last Of Us Part 2 and Ghost of Tsushima. After the arrival of Final Fantasy VII Remake, being able to talk about these games among the possible free titles with the Playstation Plus no longer seems so impossible, indeed. Especially older titles such as Spider-Man and God Of War, have now exhausted their earning potential for Sony and can therefore be easily gifted via Playstation services.

Playstation Now

What role could Playstation Now play in all this? While the Playstation Plus is accumulating high quality video games month after month, Now must somehow differentiate itself in order to attract the attention of users with a complementary service. In this sense, Sony has recently filed a rather particular patent. In the description of the latter it is explained how Sony wants to insert in an "automated" way; trophies in video games that don't have this mechanic.

This underscores how Sony wishes to have trophies on pre-Playstation 3-era titles as well, particularly on all video games that haven't received the update to support them. Between the lines it is therefore possible to read Sony's desire to bring trophies also on Playstation 2 titles and those related to the very first Playstation, without neglecting the PSP and PS Vita portable consoles. This probably implies the arrival of these video games on modern platforms, perhaps through a backward compatibility offered through the Playstation Now. Obviously there is no guarantee that this will happen, but it remains a viable option for the future of the service.

Official Playstation Now logo How nice it would be to turn the Playstation Now service into a collection of all Playstation video games released since 1995 to date? Think you can find in a single subscription all the titles such as Metal Gear Solid, Silent Hill, Final Fantasy VII, Resident Evil, Gran Turismo, God Of War and many others, available in backward compatibility with lots of trophies and perhaps even some graphic improvements. A catalog with the titles PS1, PS2, PS3 and PS4 would already be excellent, therefore leaving the titles for Playstation 5 to the Plus subscription. The Playstation Now could therefore become in all respects an excellent service for retrogaming, while offering certain titles more modern ones that have not found space in the Playstation Plus.

Unity is strength

Three of the best Playstation exclusives At this point we wondered why not a single subscription that includes both the Playstation Plus and the Playstation Now? We have seen how in fact the services are on the one hand different, with one aiming to offer more and more modern titles, the other instead to keep the old generations' collection alive, on the other hand they struggle to live together to always offer fresh content. interesting for users. Following in Microsoft's footsteps with its Game Pass Ultimate, which includes both Xbox Live Gold (the equivalent of Plus) and Game Pass (a sort of Playstation Now), see both Sony services offered at one price. more advantageous if bought together, it would undoubtedly bring some new subscribers. If on the one hand the Playstation Plus is almost a mandatory purchase for those who want to play online, even neglecting the monthly games offered by the subscription, the same cannot be said of the Playstation Now. In fact, many users could discover in the latter a great way to look out for numerous video games included in a single monthly expense, just as they are already doing with Netflix for movies and TV series or the Game Pass itself for video games.

In fact, Sony is also making a lot of efforts with the Playstation Now, bringing to a purely mathematical level a much greater number of titles than the Plus. So why not promote this service better and include it in a single subscription that is extremely interesting for the user the final? The numbers speak for themselves: the Playstation Now last year had about 2 million subscribers, while the Plus reached 45 million. The diffusion potential of Playstation Now is still very high, but the way forward for both services must be clearly defined. Sony is currently probably struggling to bring cool titles to both of their services (kind of like Microsoft with Xbox Live Gold and Game Pass), so merging them together into one subscription would make life easier for the company.

Obviously you have to find the right compromise, perhaps setting an appropriate price for the offer, without preventing users who simply want to play online from enjoying this benefit at a lower price. In short, it is not easy for Sony to manage these two services, above all due to the continuous evolution of the market, the fierce competition and the different needs of gamers. We just have to wait and hope that some interesting news will be announced soon for the two services, which can in a certain sense project us into the future of Playstation Plus and Playstation Now.

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