Game streaming is seemingly here to stay, with just about everyone tossing their hat in the ring to gain early footing. While Stadia and GeForce Now may be the first streaming services that come to mind, Microsoft has diligently built out its own streaming service through its Xbox Cloud Gaming (still in beta) service paired with Xbox Game Pass. So, of course, Sony had to get in on the fun, and even though the company has been trailing behind the competition, rumors have been flying. Well, today, we finally learned how Sony plans to implement game streaming. It will do so by combining its PlayStation Now and Plus services into three tiers of PlayStation Plus, with the last tier offering game steaming across PS4, PS5, and PC, though mobile support is noticeably absent.
Thanks to a recent blog post by Sony, pricing for the upcoming three fresh tiers for PlayStation Plus are available. The first tier, called PlayStation Plus Essential, is the base subscription, and it offers two monthly downloadable games, a few discounts, cloud storage, and multiplayer access, all for $10 a month (or $60 a year). The second tier, known as PlayStation Plus Extra, ups the content and price, where you’ll gain access to over 400 PS4 and PS5 games for $15 a month ($100 yearly). The last tier is the one that contains the ability to stream games, called PlayStation Plus Premium. It offers access to 340+ more games than the previous two tiers, containing titles from PlayStation, PS2 and PSP, as well as PS4 and PS5, along with access to PC titles, with the monthly price jumping to $18 ($120 yearly).
Of course, Sony has yet to detail which games will be available for its three upcoming PlayStation Plus subscription tiers, though it’s certainly interesting to see that PC is included in the third tier that contains cloud streaming functionality (with regional availability the same as PlayStation Now). This could mean the PC streams might happen in the browser, which could open access to Chromebooks (or even possibly mobile), though it’s certainly disheartening to see that mobile isn’t mentioned once in today’s announcement. Not only has Microsoft made incredible inroads on mobile, with plenty of games that can be streamed with native touch controls, Google and Nvidia also offer similar features for touch control play. This means Sony is entering the game streaming arena at a disadvantage, which hardly sounds like a great way to start.
It’s also concerning to see that all three tiers of PlayStation Plus are primarily centered around installing and playing games on a physical PlayStation (not that it’s unexpected). Not only is it still incredibly challenging to find a PS5 for its retail price, the price attached to PlayStation Plus Premium makes it difficult for those only interested in streaming to justify the price, especially if they don’t own a PlayStation, as the majority of subscription money will be wasted on features the subscriber can’t take advantage of. So it would seem Sony is only courting PlayStation users at the moment, which seems a little short-sided, at least as far as game streaming is concerned.
Sony is indeed out in front of its upcoming PlayStation Plus pricing ahead of the June launch in Asia, with rollout in the US is expected to follow Asia’s launch, and in the coming months, I would expect more news to trickle out as hard dates and games are announced. Still, it would have been nice to see mobile support included out of the gate, especially when competitors like Microsoft already offer mobile streaming. Still, it’s early days for the new tiers of PlayStation Plus, so there’s a chance more features will be announced as we get closer to the official release. So stay tuned, as I’m sure this story is far from over.
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