Phil Spencer Says Sony Working On a Xbox Game Pass Competitor Is The Right Answer
Xbox Head Phil Spencer has commented on the rumors of PlayStation working on their Game Pass competitor and praised this move.
He talked about it in a recent interview with IGN and called it the right move from Sony.
“As you know,” Spencer began, “so many of these things actually intertwine with themselves, from [backwards compatibility] in terms of a way of building out a library of games that we have shipping on PC and console simultaneously […] knowing that Game Pass is gonna come and we wanna bring Game Pass to multiple platforms – all of these decisions kind of stack on top of themselves.
“I don’t mean it to sound like we’ve got it all figured out, but I think the right answer is allowing your customers to play the games they wanna play, where they wanna play them, and giving them choice about how they build their library, and being transparent with them about what our plans are in terms of our PC initiatives and our cross-gen initiatives and other things.
“So when I hear others doing things like Game Pass or coming to PC, it makes sense to me because I think that’s the right answer.”
Xbox Game Pass has single-handily saved the Xbox ecosystem this generation and boosted Microsoft’s portfolio of games as they attempt to diversify their lineup. It is a role model of how to provide a subscription service that is full of games, even if this requires a lot of investment to get it right.
Nintendo has attempted their take on the game pass type subscription service except they only offer classic games from NES to SNES. They have tied this to their Nintendo Switch Online subscription service.
There have been quite a few rumors by now that Sony is working on a competitor to Xbox Game Pass that has been internally named Spartacus. This will apparently replace the existing subscription model offered in the form of PlayStation Now and PlayStation Plus, just like Microsoft did it with Xbox Live Gold and Xbox Game Pass, putting both of these in the bundle.
