PlayStation Now Won't Be Getting Day One Sony Exclusives Anytime Soon
PlayStation Now made some major changes at the beginning of October, cutting its monthly subscription price in half while pledging to include more big-name Sony titles like God of War and Uncharter 4: A Thief's End. But don't get carried away thinking PlayStation Now is going to become Xbox Game Pass, adding first-party exclusives on launch day. According to Sony, that's not happening.
At least not right now, anyway.
In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Sony's Jim Ryan discussed why the Game Pass path isn't one Sony's willing to trek down with PlayStation Now.
"It's an area that is fast changing and fluid," Ryan said. "The nature and scale of some of the first party games that we are making leads us to think that, right now, it's better to spend energy on making sure that the launch of those games is a massive entertainment event. I would cite God of War and Spider-Man, and The Last of Us 2 next year will fall into that category."
It sounds Ryan believes that, if Sony were to include exclusives in PlayStation Now right away, it would detract from the large launches those games typically enjoy. Perhaps!
"That's where we stand right now," Ryan continued. "But our stance on the inclusion of first party games in PlayStation Now in terms of what we've done this month is very different to our stance 12 months ago. I don't want to say this is what PlayStation Now is going to be like forever. But certainly right now, given how some of our first party IP is incredibly special and valuable, we just want to treat them with amazing care and respect, and have those launches be clean and pure."
So there you have it: two different companies with two very different philosophies. On one side, you have Microsoft, which is launching first-party exclusives into Game Pass on both PC and Xbox One at launch. On the other side, you have Sony, believing that the best way to release a game is at retail. Then, maybe sometime later, it can come to PlayStation Now.
As Ryan stated, it may not be the way things are always done. But right now, Sony clearly believes that adopting a Game Pass-like approach would do more harm than good to its stable of exclusives.
We'll update you if anything changes.