Rumours concerning Sony's PlayStation rival to Xbox's Game Pass monthly subscription service have been around since December, but now a new report sheds some more light on what it will offer and how much it will cost.
The service – codenamed Spartacus – is said to combine the benefits of PlayStation Now and PlayStation Plus, and will probably be available for the PS4 and PS5. According to GamesBeat, Sony will offer it in three tiers, costing $10, $13 and $16 per month (there's no word on international pricing). These tiers will reportedly be called Essential, Extra and Premium, respectively (though GamesBeat notes that these names could change before launch).
Essential is said to resemble PlayStation Plus in its current form. The $10 asking price is the same as now, and it will still give you access to an online games library every month. The Extra tier costs $3 more per month, and will offer the same as Essential plus a catalogue of hundreds of older games that you can download. It's possible that this catalogue could be the same as currently offered by PlayStation Now.
Your $16 a month for the Premium tier gets you all the same benefits as Extra, plus PlayStation Now's streaming capabilities and a library of classic games to play. The tier's "game trials" feature will let you download and play new games before they launch, a bit like the demo discs that the Official PlayStation Magazine used to give away mounted on its cover.
The service is likely to be a key part of Sony's gaming arsenal, now that Microsoft's takeover of Activision Blizzard has the Redmond-based company poised to become the world's third-biggest gaming company. With Xbox Game Pass offering titles from both Activision Blizzard and Fallout studio Bethesda (another relatively recent Microsoft purchase), Sony will certainly have its work cut out to make its version look like similarly good value.
Sony's Spartacus service will reportedly enter testing in the coming weeks. We could apparently see an official reveal as early as next month.
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