PlayStation Plus: Still no day-one releases for premium titles

Subscribers to Xbox Game Pass are now used to being able to play numerous new releases alongside interesting indie games right on day one. Sony also offers a similar subscription model with its PS Plus, which only recently received a major overhaul. However, unlike Microsoft, Sony does not want to make any premium titles available to their subscribers immediately at release, as PlayStation’s Head of Independent Developer initiatives, Shuhei Yoshida, while GI Live 2022 declared again.

Premium titles still not direct to release on PS Plus

“We believe in premium release of titles at launch. The new PS Plus has tiers and essentially it’s like the old PS Plus, we’re still releasing two or three new games every month and it has a new tier called Extra a catalog of hundreds of games for people to play. Our approach to Extra is that we like to help publishers with lifecycle management.”

Yoshida compares Sony’s strategy to films that are released theatrically before they are released on other platforms. The later PS Plus release aims to make the game available to a wider audience after sales for the title plummeted.

“I’ve managed first-party at Playstation, so I know it’s like cinema – a movie comes out in theaters first, then goes to pay-per-view, or a subscription service, or free-to-air TV, which means new ones every time Revenue is generated and a wider audience is reached.In the same way, we believe in the premium release of a title at launch and after maybe six months or three months or three years when sales of the games go down, inclusion on this service can, ps Plus extra, helping introduce these games to new audiences.”

“Some people may have missed these games when they came out and it’s a great opportunity to play and generate word of mouth, or if there’s DLC or a sequel, we can help generate interest in the franchise from a wider audience so we encourage publishers to use these services to manage the lifecycle of each title.”