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PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan has explained why the upcoming revamp to PlayStation Plus won’t include first-party day one releases.
Ryan was speaking to GamesIndustry.biz in an extensive interview on the new three-tiered PlayStation Plus. Before yesterday’s announcement, rumours had pegged the revamp as PlayStation’s answer to Xbox Game Pass. One of that service’s perks sees games like Halo Infinite & Forza Horizon 5 launch day one onto the service. This won’t be the case for games like God of War: Ragnarok on PlayStation’s equivalent, and Ryan explained Sony’s thinking.
“We feel like we are in a good virtuous cycle with the studios, where the investment delivers success, which enables yet more investment, which delivers yet more success. We like that cycle, and we think our gamers like that cycle,” he said. “[In terms of] putting our own games into this service, or any of our services, upon their release… as you well know, that’s not a road we’ve gone down in the past. And it’s not a road we’re going to go down with this new service.”
“We feel if we were to do that with the games that we make at PlayStation Studios, that virtuous cycle will be broken,” Ryan continued. “The level of investment that we need to make in our studios would not be possible, and we think the knock-on effect on the quality of the games that we make would not be something that gamers want.”
However, Ryan also admits that this could change in the future, citing recent launches of PlayStation exclusives coming to PC such as the previous God of War as an example. “I don’t want to cast anything in stone at this stage. All I’m talking to today is the approach we’re talking in the short term. The way our publishing model works right now, it doesn’t make any sense. But things can change very quickly in this industry, as we all know.”
The new PlayStation Plus will launch in June, merging the existing PlayStation Plus and PlayStation Now services. There’ll be three tiers on offer, with higher tiers including a library of up to 700+ games. PlayStation has also confirmed to IGN that all three tiers will include the PlayStation Plus Collection on PS5.