There is a lot of speculation regarding how Sony should respond to Game Pass. The most common answer is to start putting their first party titles on Playstation Now day one. However, I think that kind of response is unlikely, since hardware sales, mindshare, consumer buying habits, and profit margins have yet to be impacted. So what could Sony do to increase the value proposition of PS Now in the near future? I think they should leverage their entertainment pillars similar to Amazon Prime and take a page out of Disney+: 

(1) PS1, PS2, PS3, PS4, PSP, PSV backwards compatibility. An extensive legacy collection with the options to download or stream. I think this is the most obvious step to adding more value to PS Now. 

(2) Add the back catalog of Sony Pictures television + movies. While they have decades worth of content, compared to other streaming options, Sony Pictures pales in comparison and would be overshadowed if they had their own subscription service. But having their movies and television on a subscription like PS Now adds value that other subscription services can't match. Although this could be a bit more difficult with all the contractual obligations in place (IE. the Netflix deal or The Boys on Amazon Prime). 

(3) Discounts for first party titles on Day One & select third party titles in the ball park of $20 - $25. Perhaps a $10 discount on select Indie titles. 

(4) Keep the price the same while expanding into different countries. Add another tier for PS+ that includes PS Now. This way, instead of merging PS+ and PS Now, both of these services have a unique value proposition. 

What do you think? Can Sony pull this off? Does this model provide enough value? Will there be any synergy between Sony Interactive and Sony Pictures? Is it sustainable? Give me your thoughts. 

1 and 4 are the only two options that are feasible and make sense.

PS Now offers nearly 800 games at the moment. The value is pretty strong. PS5 games will eventually come to the service.

I agree that putting games on a service day 1 isn't sustainable, without adding in a bunch of microtransactions. Microsoft does it because they are desperately trying to grow Gamepass as quickly as possible after losing last gen horribly to both Nintendo and Sony.

Sony owns funimation and crunchyroll. They should add those services to PS Now.

They should also just make PS+ come free with PS Now or vice versa.

"We have had this conversation before -- we are not going to go down the road of putting new release titles into a subscription model. These games cost many millions of dollars, well over $100 million, to develop. We just don't see that as sustainable.

"We want to make the games bigger and better, and hopefully at some stage more persistent. So putting those into a subscription model on day one, for us, just doesn't make any sense. For others in a different situation, it might well make sense, but for us it doesn't. We want to expand and grow our existing ecosystem, and putting new games into a subscription model just doesn't sit with that." - Jim Ryan September 2020

I think it has more to do with the fact that they have 47.4 million paying subscribers and launch revenue from every first party title. They would stand to lose a significant amount of revenue by tying all of their games to a service.

I agree.

That's why I think Sony should enhance PS Now using their various entertainment pillars. It won't take away revenue from first party releases while providing one of the most unique subscription services on the market. I'm not sure about the math, but having $20 discounts on first party titles shouldn't eat into their revenue/profit, especially if PS Now sees similar growth to PS+.

I don't think they can compete with MS's Gamepass unless they have some day ones. That said, I'm all for a beefier PS NOW.

The only point that holds some value is the point 1, however not sure how much. I somewhat feel Playstation system resorts too much in hype and novelty and most of older titlre may not enjoy much success 

But the worst factor here is copyright. Like, why are we all sure they will manage to get a extensive library from so many third party studios that maybe not be so eager to put their games in a subscription service? 

Sony Pictures sucks. Nothing more to say 

Most of PS games lost value extremely fast, making a discount for selected games pointless. There is no reason to even buy a game for 60 USD for PS4 unless the person is totally desperate to play it in the day of release. Besides, will third parties even accept therms where they will send their expensive games heavily discounted on the release week? 

1. They should add PS1 and PS5 games. That's a no-brainer. PSP and PS Vita are trickier though. It could be done, but how much emulation would it require? And how much would it be used? Also, they need to add more PS2 games. I think they only have 18 of them. What a joke.
2. I'd love for them to have some PS3 games downloadable. It sucks that every single PS3 game is stream-only. Also, some PS3 games should have PS4 versions on PS Now. The Last of Us, Uncharted Trilogy, and Batman Arkham games come to mind.
3. I don't think adding movies and tv shows makes any sense.
4. Releasing new games day one doesn't seem like it would benefit Sony. It would benefit us, but it would probably cause them to take a hit.
5. I do think there should be a bundle with PS Plus.

I don't think they need to worry about competing against GamePass. Sony have probably 2x the number of subscribers AFAIK.
I think it's just an artifact of the climate here and in Anglophone gaming sites (skewed to Xbox fan base, with premise of 1:1 competition).
They already offer good value proposition, in the fact that all the games they offer can be kept forever with subscription, unlike GP.

I don't the stuff about integrating it with streamed film/TV content is likely, just because it doesn't make sense to yoke those to gaming.
Sony may want to pursue own owned (or part owned) streaming operation, but no reason it needs to be tied to PS+ or Playstation at all.
(and their own content on it's own isn't really quite sufficient, they somewhat need to agglomerate with other film/TV streaming companies)
If they did do some sort of tie in with gaming, I would expect it would also have PC counterpart probably thru Epic, to reach more audience.
And probably be at most some sort of combo discount for both, but it's fully possible to subscribe to either one without the other.
I guess that could have attraction if they can develop some sort of social angle to film/TV streaming, maybe live in stream commentary etc?
(and from corporate side, better "intelligence" to consumer habits, optimized marketing opportunities, etc)

But fixating on tying it at the hip to Playstation would be drag on those other divisons, and the whole impulse feels forced and ungrounded.
I think they will continue to evolve it's offering and fair to say it's value will be increased, but the worry about 1:1 GP competition isn't all that.

I do think the meta factors of game market with 3rd party is interesting, if GP is relatively successful on Xbox fed with more 1st party content,
then Xbox customers become relatively more "sated" re: 3rd party purchases, to an extent some can make money from deals to go on GP,
but there is saturation  factor there that can't replace all 3rd party sales... So if Sony doens't follow that GP model as much, Playstation will
more important place for 3rd parties, and exclusivity deals (timed or not) relatively more attractive vs cost of multiplat w/ GP-saturated Xbox.

Likewise, more than just copying existing models or combining them, I think Sony would be considering new approaches it could take.
Possibly not just giving everybody free games as part of subscription, but running "lottery" to randomly get a few free games per year.
Why do that as part of PS+? Well it does perhaps increase perceived value, but re: 3rd party interest it can include smart marketing,
to see who is most likely to play that genre, and who is most likely to recommend it to online friends, the  results of free test games
can  even inform how to focus their marketing budget i.e. who is most receptive who is actively disinterested etc. Sony can offer it's
insight  into consumer patterns via PS+ to the 3rd party publishers thus making it more than sales proposition, but key to marketing.

Ps now to even be considered a competition to gamepass is to remove streaming barrier fot ps1, ps2 and ps3 games and the game should have resolution boosted to 4k native and Fps of 60fps where they can apply it.