PlayStation Plus tiers a "counter punch" to Game Pass? Or is it a copycat?

[ZyroXZ2]

SvennoJ said:

ZyroXZ2 said:

The bit I replied above to the other post: PSNow stayed a streaming service until Game Pass was already out, and then they moved to a download format (though not all titles were available for download).  Believe it or not, Game Pass DID come in and force Sony to make a change to their already offered services because EA Access sure as hell didn't lo...  If anything, Game Pass could be credited with pressuring PSNow to shift to downloads.  Competition is always a good thing!

I do NOT, however, remember "game rentals" in PS+.  Did I miss something?  Admittedly, I didn't sign up for PS+ until it was required for online play, though it still happened before I ever signed up for XBL...

PS+ started with 2, sometimes 3 'free' games per month, build your library. It's not free, it's rentals until you stop paying, same as gamepass. Well not exactly the same, ps+ never removes games from your library. PS+ also started with 1 hour trials and of course discounts. PS+ even experimented with making the game available a couple days earlier to subscribers.

PS+ was/is the download part which was also extended to PS Now. Probably as a reaction to GP, or maybe it was in the cards already. It's cheaper for Sony when you use your own hardware to run the game...

Ah, you're somewhat mixing things up a bit, but that's not entirely your fault: if you compare to XBL, then you can only compare to Essential (which is the old PS+, basically).  I guess it's also my fault that I didn't add that bit of clarity: I assumed that if I was comparing Game Pass, people would know I'm talking Extra and Premium PS+ tiers and not Essential (which is the tier I'm subbed at because it basically carries over).  Then again, when XBL started adding free games, there were some good ones, too.  Both of them, however, I felt always offered subpar free games with the occasional gems over the course of an entire year.  Naturally, they weren't going to offer the good stuff, which is kind of how Game Pass and PS+ tiers came to be when you stop and think about it.  If you WANT the good stuff, you gotta pay more lol

Overall, though, comparing XBL and PS+ are pretty close, they both have (mostly garbage) free games, they both have sales, at that level, comparing is almost useless.  But you might want to read my response to Kyuu below...

Kyuu said:

ZyroXZ2 said:

Nope, you didn't miss it: you got me on that one.  I'm a GPUlt sub, so I never even noticed that XBL was NOT included in base GP.  Well shit, a mistake in my video.

I guess I'll just have to die, then.  You did it, you killed me.

*croaks*

Side note on your edit: what do you mean by "locked"?  If your sub lapses, so does your access to any PS+ games you downloaded.  XBL suffers this same issue, of course.  I had let my PS+ sub lapse for awhile since I didn't need it, and of course, any PS+ games I had downloaded would not play.

Well I'm glad you survived that :P

Subscribing is required of course but PS+ Essential and Live Gold have an advantage over PS+ Extra/Premium/Collection and GamePass in that when a game gets delisted, you could still play them if you had them added to your library (You can't do that with premium services afaik). So the active players who are adding every game on PS+ Essential have access to a much greater number of games than 700. Yes, this does apply to Live Gold as well, but as I mentioned, Live Gold is trash compared to PS+ Essential.

PS+ Essential (cheap entry level service) remains Sony's primary service, as opposed to GamePass (expensive premium service) being Microsoft's main focus. MS blatantly tried to double the price of Live Gold to artificially make Game Pass Ultimate more appealing and speed up the transition from a terrible entry level service (Weaker than PS+ Essential but twice the price). But the backlash forced them to reverse.

Here's something you missed, hopefully you can survive this: MS provides cloud saves to ALL XB accounts, period.  Sony locks cloud saves behind PS+ which means you only get cloud saves if you are a PS+ sub.  All XB accounts get cloud saves whether they're subbed to XBL or not.

That has actually come quite in handy, too: I can load up games I played on the XB1 on my XSX, and *bam* it's right where I left off.  In fact, I've seen some people find out that their X360 saves are still there, too, for games they haven't played in decades!  If we start going on a tangent here, MS has actually offered far more robust online services far earlier than Sony has, and let's not forget, they're the ones that pushed online console play and achievements, so while PS+ started later and provided better than XBL Gold, XB accounts were supplied with far better features overall from the very start.