Playstation “Spartacus” subscription service to compete with Xbox Game Pass

Jason Schreier has written about Sony‘s plans for a subscription service on Playstation, currently code-named Spartacus, to compete with Microsoft‘s Xbox Game Pass. The “Spartacus” subscription service will see Playstation owners pay a monthly fee to access a catalog of modern and classic games that people can expect to be available on the PS4 and PS5.

The service is currently planned to launch in the spring, and will merge Playstation Plus and Playstation Now. PS Plus offers free monthly titles that you can keep as long as your subscription remains active besides being required for most online / multiplayer services. PS Now is where you can stream or download older games. It would appear the Playstation Plus branding will remain, while PS Now will be phased out. Other plans include expansion of cloud gaming.

“Spartacus” has three tiers in its present iteration:

• Tier 1: Existing PS Plus benefits
• Tier 2: PS4, then PS5 titles
• Tier 3: Extended demos, game streaming, classic PS1 / PS2 / PS3 / PSP games

Considering our write-up on Xbox’s apparent lack of success in at least Southeast Asia, it could seem that Sony would easily outsell Xbox in this region even further once the service goes live. How much more would you be willing to pay for full access?

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