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Has PlayStation come to the Game Pass party too late?

For PlayStation owners, news at the weekend that PlayStation may finally be getting its own game subscription service similar to Xbox’s Game Pass was surely met with glee.

As reported by Bloomberg, people close to the matter who asked not to be identified have said that PlayStation owners would soon be able to purchase a subscription to a service called Spartacus. Spartacus is a code-name, but we really hope PlayStation keeps it.

Not only will Spartacus reportedly offer the ability to play games for a single fee, it would also features currently rolled into PlayStation Plus.

The report further reads that the service will launch in Spring because apparently the USA doesn’t have calendars. For the rest of the world that’s around the March/April mark.

The service appears to offer three different tiers. The first tier would offer PlayStation Plus benefits as they exist today. The second tier would include the aforementioned PlayStation Plus benefits as well as a catalogue of PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 games.

The third tier, which is likely what most folks would want, includes classic games from previous console generations, game streaming and extended demos.

The big questions we have is whether this is too little too late. For existing owners, we’re sure this is welcome news and perhaps those looking for a new console may be swung to PlayStation on the hopes of a Spartacus’ release.

However, the value proposition of Xbox and Game Pass cannot be ignored.

For one, the Xbox Series S can be easily found and purchased right now from a variety of retailers. Despite it not having 4K capabilities, for 1440p gaming the Series S is more than you need.

Furthermore, while Game Pass might have some slow months, the sheer number of studios Microsoft now has in its fold cannot be ignored as it drops a new game seemingly every month, that any Game Pass subscriber can play. We also know that forthcoming games from Bethesda such as Starfield and Elder Scrolls VI will be Xbox and PC exclusives.

PlayStation needs more than the odd title from From Software or Santa Monica studios to make Spartacus really attractive and we’re not sure it has that sort of capability available to it. Perhaps, if PlayStation were to partner up with Ubisoft it could offer more than just the body of work from PlayStation but now we’re just speculating wildly.

Spartacus then, looks very much like PlayStation read a description about what Game Pass is and used that to craft its service.

We should also point out that despite our love of Game Pass, the service did fail to meet the expectations at big wigs in Microsoft. While subscriptions for Game Pass grew 37 percent in the year ending 30th June 2021, that was below the 48 percent growth goal the firm set for itself Eurogamer reported in October.

We look forward to hearing more about Spartacus in the new year.

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