Jim Ryan says Day One Playstation Plus Titles “Don’t Make Any Sense”

Sony Interactive Entertainment President and CEO Jim Ryan said that new PlayStation titles being available on Playstation Plus from day one of their release would not “make sense”.

This was reported by Gameinudstry.biz following the announcement of the new tier plans for PlayStation Plus which would merge the service with Playstation Now.

When asked about the idea of new games appearing on Playstation Plus from day one, Jim Ryan said that it’s not something Sony has done in the past, that they won’t be doing it moving forward and that he doesn’t think fans would truly want that.

“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. The level of investment that we need to make in our studios would not be possible, and we think the knock-on effect on the quality of the games that we make would not be something that gamers want.”

The CEO did however state this is looking at short-term plans and that the company may change its time in the future depending on the circumstance.

All I’m talking to today is the approach we’re taking in the short term. The way our publishing model works right now, it doesn’t make any sense. But things can change very quickly in this industry, as we all know.

The question of if there will be new PlayStation titles added on day one has been circulating online because such a service is offered on Xbox Game Pass, Playstation Plus’ main competitor.

Ryan says that he does not think that gaming subscription services will become as popular as music or film platforms like Spotify or Netflix. He says that some gamers may be more interesting in live service games.

“the medium of gaming is so very different from music and linear entertainment, that I don’t think we’ll see it go to the levels that we see with Spotify and Netflix”.

“Some of the live service games that are proving very successful these days, and I’m not restricting this comment to console, they’re effectively subscription services in themselves. And they’re very much tailored to the needs of the gamer who loves whatever game that they spend hours and hours with, month after month after month. That phenomenon of the live service game… that has, in a very large part, fuelled the enormous growth in the gaming industry that we’ve seen over the last ten years. I think that trend towards live services will continue, and if you look for a model in our category of entertainment, which supports sustained engagement over a long period of time, live services game arguably fit that bill better than a subscription service”. 

He does admit however that ultimately “it’ll all about choice” and the PlayStation will offer different services for different kinds of players to suit their preferences.

“But it’s all about choice. There are obviously many millions of people who are happy to subscribe to PlayStation Plus. We offer them that option on the platform, and we think that we are offering a significantly improved option with the changes we have made.”