Nick Maguire, Sony’s Vice President and Global head of Subscriptions, has revealed the format holder still has no plans to release first-party games on PlayStation Plus on day one, saying its current strategy is working out fine.
Speaking with GI.biz, Maguire confirmed that it isn’t looking to follow in Microsoft’s footsteps and bring its games out on day one to its subscription service, suggesting having them come out later helps them ‘reach more customers.’
We’re happy with our strategy. Putting games in a bit later in the life cycle has meant that we can reach more customers 12, 18, 24 months after they have released.
We’re seeing customers still get excited about those games and jumping in. For us, that’s working. Occasionally, there will be an opportunity to invest in a day-and-date [release] like Stray, and we will jump on those when they come in. But for us, letting those [first-party] games go out to the platform outside the service first… that’s working and that will continue to be our strategy moving forward.
PlayStation Plus is currently available in three tiers: Essential, Extra, and Premium. The standard offering brings free games every month, while the other two add a number of extra games across PS5, PS4, PS3, PS2, PS1, and PSP. Earlier this week, Sony announced plans to begin testing PS5 cloud game streaming for PS Plus Premium members.
[Source – GamesIndustry.biz]