Releasing first-party games on PlayStation Plus day one would negatively impact the quality of PlayStation Studios’ output, according to Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan. Yesterday, we got our first look at the brand-new PS Plus and the very first thing everyone quickly pointed out is that it doesn’t include day-one first-party releases like Xbox Game Pass offers. Sony claims it has a very good reason for not going down that route.
Why PS Plus day one games are a bad idea
“We feel like we are in a good virtuous cycle with the studios where the investment delivers success, which enables yet more investment, which delivers yet more success,” Ryan explained to Games Industry. “Putting our own games into this service, or any of our services, upon their release… as you well know, this is not a road that we’ve gone down in the past and it’s not a road that we’re going to go down with this new service. We feel if we were to do that with the games that we make at PlayStation Studios, that virtuous cycle will be broken.” Ryan added that the loss of revenue from releasing first-party games on PS Plus day one would hurt its ability to invest into PlayStation Studios, and as a result, the quality of games would be affected.
Elsewhere in the interview, Ryan revealed that the new PS Plus tiers will include games from “every major publisher” and Sony’s negotiations with third parties are going “well.” He also acknowledged that the Premium tier might not appeal to everyone because some gamers aren’t into streaming and retro gaming.
In other news, soon players will no longer be able to renew their PS Plus subscriptions on PS3 and PS Vita, and Everybody’s Golf’s online servers will shut down in September.
[Source: Games Industry]
