PlayStation Will Reportedly Reveal 'Spartacus' Subscription Service Soon

[The Deadman]

https://www.ign.com/articles/ps5-spartacus-reveal-next-week-xbox-game-pass

PlayStation could unveil its upcoming subscription service as early as next week.

Bloomberg reports that PlayStation’s Xbox Game Pass competitor will get a proper unveiling soon. The site previously reported that PlayStation was working on a similar service under the codename “Spartacus.”

Sources say PlayStation will have a “splashy lineup of hit games,” and will officially merge PlayStation Plus with PlayStation Now, Sony’s cloud streaming service.

There are reportedly plans to offer multiple tiers of the service, with each tier offering more options to go along with the higher price point. The first tier will include the same benefits as PlayStation Plus including online play and free monthly games.

The more expensive tiers will throw in access to a gaming library similar to Game Pass, while a third, most expensive tier, will include PS1, PS2, PS3, and PSP games into this library. The most expensive tier will also include the ability to stream games and play extended demos.

PlayStation currently doesn’t offer backward compatibility with games older than the PS4 era, so including classics from the PS1 and PS2 era could be very enticing for owners.

One area where PlayStation is not following Game Pass is releasing new, first-party games on day one. According to sources games like God of War Ragnarok will not be available on the service right away.

[sdp]

Everyone will be streaming by the end of the decade. I'm guessing by 2025 it'll be normalized by then. PS5/Series X could be the last traditional consoles if this moves quickly enough.

[IMJ]

PS5/Series X could be the last traditional consoles if this moves quickly enough.

I think that was always their intent.

[sdp]

But you know how ironically enough "gamers" are against change, I remember clearly how they said downloadable games were never going to be a thing and were very vocal about it and now they sell more than half, and nowadays they say the same about streaming consoles and VR even though the trends are clear. With enough resistance it can hold back ideas a few years.

Remember when the Xbox One got a lot of heat when it was revealed it was "always online" but nowadays consoles are basically "always online", buy a series x game and you probably can't play it unless you're online and people don't question it anymore but back then it was a big controversy.

[The Deadman]

I mean if you really think about it, there already are dedicated streaming consoles for Playstation and Xbox, thats why they're always coming out with 2 versions...one for discs and one that cant use discs.

[CyberCubed]

Obviously you'll be able to buy games individually forever, but it is going to be obvious a lot of games will be part of streaming services which is fine by me. I played tons of games I would have never touched otherwise if they weren't on Gamepass or PSN. I just signed up for the free trials on new accounts every time to play games for free without paying for them.

What a time to be alive.

[Coola Yagami]

Well I just lost my XBox profile so now I have no way to download the free games of next month and onwards til they fix this. I also had a free game I didn't download because I assumed it would be ready whenever, so now that I ran into this issue, there goes my free game, in limbo somewhere.

Physical media all the way, for as long as it lasts at least.

[Turo602]

I remember when everyone was going to be gaming on a PC and then on their phones because people thought they could read trends. Consoles always seem to be at risk to these "the end is nigh" spewing clowns. Creating more avenues for people to engage with gaming as a way to increase their overall customer base doesn't equal the death of traditional consoles, especially not while they're still so damn popular.

[CyberCubed]

I actually just recently sold off a lot of my PS3/PS4 games on ebay recently, because I honestly realized...I'm probably not ever going to replay them a third or fourth time. I always replay single player games at least once, so technically I replayed every game I had twice.

But then again most popular games are re-released anyway. For example the Mass Effect Trilogy remaster, so I just replayed them there and sold off the PS3 versions. Most popular games get collections years down the line too.

The only games I keep are the big Nintendo franchises or franchises I am attached too like Resident Evil and Metal Gear Solid, and even then when they get remakes you can get rid of the original copies.

[sdp]

I know graphs and numbers scare some of the boomer members but mobile overtook consoles a long time ago. PCs will never outdo consoles because consoles are far more casual and easier to use, though you can argue that consoles today are just PCs since the previous gen when they went to x86 architecture. Everyone will be gaming from streaming boxes through the streaming services that microsoft, amazon and whoever else has, only the most die hard fans will keep buying expensive consoles when you can play the same games on a $50 device you can plug to your TV.

https://www.mobvista.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/2012-2021-global-games-market-800x495.png

Obviously some sort of physical will exist at least for a while to fill the large enough niche, but you'll look like those boomers buying DVDs to their favorite shows because they can't even get Blu-Ray releases since it isn't worth it for companies to do them while streamers can watch a better quality release.

[Turo602]

That's such a lame argument, especially when it's mostly nonsense predictions spoken as fact despite nothing backing it up. Anyone can use graphs and numbers and misrepresent them to fit their own narrative.

"Mobile overtook consoles" is such a bullsh*t statement too since it's just shifting the narrative to revenue. Everyone has phones, toddlers use phones, and mobile gaming is largely just exploitative pay to win garbage. It's in no way a competitor to console gaming and largely exists as a separate form of the medium that is not taken as seriously by the gaming industry despite how effective it is at scamming people.

The whole doom and gloom shtick for consoles is so retarded anyway. If it's not PC, it's mobile, if it's not mobile, it's VR, and now it's subscriptions. Only an idiot can think consoles are becoming niche when they've been extremely successful. The real world doesn't work like some stupid cartoon depiction of the future where there's gonna be this one fits all solution for everything and there's definitely nothing pointing towards that with gaming.

[LeotheLateBloomer]

Consoles will always have it's place. The Nintendo Switch has sold over 100+ million units and Playstation consoles (PS3 aside) also sell this amount.

MS' new focus is less about buying the console and more that they want you to subscribe to their Game Pass service. From what it looks like, it's a good deal as someone whose not huge into Xbox. It took me a while to think about it but the Bethesda and Activision-Blizzard acquisitions were to bolster their service.

[Sumac]

Streaming services for games?
Well, maybe it is good for old games, which are incompatible with a new hardware, but for contemporary games, I'd prefer, if there was possibility to buy and install them. Unless you're fancying possibility to lose all your digital library along with subscription service.

[Andrew NDB]

I know graphs and numbers scare some of the boomer members

Do we even have any boomers on this board? Even one? I can't think of anyone offhand who was born between 1946 and 1964 around these parts. Maybe in the early 2000s but they're long gone.

And I don't think mobile games are cutting into the console market's piece of the pie as much as it is just people gaming on their phones who wouldn't otherwise be owning a console anyway, out of necessity or otherwise (bored at work, school, no money for $60 games, etc.).

[joe-eyeball]

Do we even have any boomers on this board? Even one? I can't think of anyone offhand who was born between 1946 and 1964 around these parts. Maybe in the early 2000s but they're long gone.

And I don't think mobile games are cutting into the console market's piece of the pie as much as it is just people gaming on their phones who wouldn't otherwise be owning a console anyway, out of necessity or otherwise (bored at work, school, no money for $60 games, etc.).

Exactly! Anyone that uses the term boomers so flippantly is literally a walking cliche. And the increase of mobile gaming as compared to console or PC is just as you hinted at. People are bored and it’s convenient to play a game on your phone under certain circumstances. The overall market reach of gaming increased and thus on the graph it looks like console gaming has decreased. It’s not fair or accurate to compare Candy Crush to Call of Duty.

[Andrew NDB]

And there are many situations when you can't whip out, say, a Switch but a phone would be fine.

[Leo656]

Exactly! Anyone that uses the term boomers so flippantly is literally a walking cliche.

Especially when they themselves are by all evidence in their mid-30s at the least.

sdp has been singing the same "Consoles are gonna drop dead any day now, just wait!" song - complete with charts and graphs, even! - for at least ten years, and they're gonna keep doing it until one day it turns out to happen. Might be another decade or more, most likely, but they'll be right there with the "I TOLD you so!" as if they weren't literally the human equivalent of a busted clock.

[Andrew NDB]

Exactly! Anyone that uses the term boomers so flippantly is literally a walking cliche.

When it's used incorrectly it is literally just "I didn't pay attention in/go to school." Which says far more about the person than anyone else.

[The Deadman]

And officially announced
https://www.ign.com/articles/playstation-plus-ps-now-spartacus-subscription-tiers-price-ps3-xbox-game-pass-release-date

[IMJ]

This reminded me of Sony's "Playstation Home" initiative. Back then, nobody understood it and it failed, but now it's called "brilliant" and known as the "meta-verse - a place for crypto and NFT's".

Sony did it first on the PS3 more than a decade ago.