The omens were fulfilled and finally, Sony announced a renewal of its service called playstation pluswhich will have three membership levels starting next June, making it clear that subscription services have gradually become a very attractive consumer alternative.
As an initial context, the plans that the Japanese company will offer include:
- Essential: Traditional PlayStation Plus.
- Extra: It incorporates downloadable PS4 and PS5 games.
- Premium: Add downloads of original PlayStation, PS2 and PSP titles. PS3 games are streaming.
- Deluxe: Replaces the Premium package in Latin America.
That said, from the Extra step, it is a merger between playstation plus and Playstation Now. The latter currently owns more than 400 PS4 games and 300 PS3 titles, in addition to a dozen PS2 titles. It will be a matter of knowing what the initial library for the original PlayStation and PSP will be:
Since its inception in 2014, Playstation Now had potential but Sony did not promote it properly, limited it to specific regions and has made very little effort to expand it, resulting in not all gamers know about it.
The Premium level will only be present in countries that have Playstation Nowwhile Mexico and the rest of Latin America do not appear in them, giving rise to a complementary rank (Deluxe) where some productions from previous generations can be downloaded but streaming of Playstation 3.
Sony was forceful arguing that its premieres first party day one will not arrive at the service, but other productions will, such as returnal. Very ambiguous was the message regarding the arrival of Death Stranding, Marvel’s Spider-Man and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Moralesas it is unknown which version they will be (PS4 or PS5).
Some challenges are visible in the short and medium term, such as the fact that the promotions to be put in place to attract as many users as possible. If only the price update is made due to a change of plan but without any additional benefit, the growth will be gradual and not exponential.
On the other hand, PlayStation remains indebted to the Latin American market, since although it offers more competitive prices in its subscriptions with respect to North America, it has not shown the greatest willingness to tropicalize its collection currencies and above all, have a service that does not have regional barriers .
It is noteworthy that in the current generation of consoles, Sony decided to do some modifications in its commercial strategy, based on the movements of both the industry and its competitors, showing that it cannot be left behind.
For example, with the announcement of the PS5 it was emphasized that there would be few intergenerational titles to exploit the potential of such a system, but the plan was modified and we have already seen Horizon Forbidden West and Grand Touring 7 on PS4, as will happen with God of War: Ragnarok.
In parallel, Jim Ryanpresident of PlayStation, said that the company under his command was not interested in subscription services and years later, they changed their minds to renew playstation plus and join a market segment that is giving a lot to talk about.
The face lift of playstation plus It is an advance in the industry and a new alternative for people who are interested in this type of service. The adoption curve and the movements of the other companies will be key for Sony define whether to continue with the same strategy or whether it is prudent to include more added value.
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