PlayStation Needs To Put The Pieces Together For A Game Pass Competitor

With Microsoft’s bombshell acquisition of Activision Blizzard announced this morning, on top of its other big purchases in recent years, the Xbox family is well beyond stacked. With its competition’s first-party lineup growing and subsequently shrinking selection of big third-party partners, Sony has a challenge ahead of it, to say the least. However, instead of staying toe-to-toe with Xbox by acquiring studios to keep up, it’s more important right now for Sony to develop a rival to Microsoft’s biggest boon this generation: Xbox Game Pass.

Microsoft could choose to make exclusive Xbox consoles of franchises such as Warcraft, Diablo and Call of Duty. In reality, however, all existing games from these huge names are available for use in Game Pass. This is evident by Bethesda’s 2020 absorption. All devices can play Modern Warfare campaigns or Overwatch matches, whether they are on mobile, PCs, consoles or cloud streaming via browsers. It’s easy to compare how many studios and IP are now at the disposal of Xbox compared to Sony, but Microsoft’s real and considerable advantage is the ease of access the average consumer has to its games.

Sony is well-equipped to offer a Game Pass-type service. PlayStation Now has been around for a long time and is the best way to get those games out to as many people as possible. You can stream your favorite games directly to PlayStation or PC with this subscription. Many people don’t know that many PS Now titles can be downloaded, but only PS2 or PS4 games work in this manner. Ideally, this would change.

Sony has one hell of a back catalog of classic games that would convince people to subscribe to an all-access PlayStation subscription service. The key to making Game Pass a viable competitor is understanding the issues of backward compatibility that are preventing Sony from making PS1/PS3 games compatible with current hardware. Once that’s possible, the sky is the limit for what enticing products to put on the service. It’s a powerful tool, and it is very appealing to let people play every generation of God of War and Twisted Metal and Warhawk with just one subscription.

Next would be an expansion of the PlayStation Plus Collection to include the library of PlayStation Now games and wrapping them into PlayStation Plus pricing. It is no longer acceptable to pay for online play on its own, and that feature should be absorbed into a super service with one cost and one expansive digital library with games that can be streamed or downloaded. This is a reasonable summary of all the pieces Sony has.

And we’re haven’t even talked about Sony’s secret sauce for this revamped PlayStation Plus. Remember, Sony isn’t just a games company. Sony TV series, movies and music are the x-factor. They will offer the full range of content that it has to attract potential customers. The cost of your subscription will include the purchase of the Spider-Man film. Funimation, Crunchyroll and Crunchyroll are two well-known anime companies that fall under the Sony umbrella. They could easily be used for the exclusive entertainment offered by a Sony membership. It’s not just about games anymore, and Sony should have the foresight to use everything on hand to differentiate itself.

There are many pieces that can be used to make a game company competitive without having to spend billions on another publisher. There may still be some technical challenges and outstanding licensing agreements that prevent a viable and unique Game Pass competitor. Sony’s not out of the game because it may not have Call of Duty in a few years, but it needs to adapt the services it provides before it’s left in the dust.