Image: Sony
Sony’s upcoming multi-tier expansion of PlayStation Plus is reportedly close to releasing.
Last year, Sony PlayStation was reportedly planning an expansion to its PlayStation Plus subscription service to better rival Xbox Game Pass. Now, a new report from VentureBeat’s Jeff Grubb states that the new version of PlayStation Plus, codenamed Project Spartacus, will launch in Spring this year with multiple subscription tiers.
Project Spartacus will launch with three subscription tiers, which Grubb labels ‘Essential’, ‘Extra’ and ‘Premium’ respectively. The leaker says, “The pricing is U$10 a month for Essential, U$13 a month for Extra and U$16 a month for Premium.” The Essential tier will offer the same benefits as PlayStation Plus (monthly free games and online multiplayer), but console owners will now be able to pay more for extra features at the higher tiers.
The US$13 per month Extra tier will incorporate elements of PlayStation Now, Sony’s game streaming service that will reportedly be phased out upon Spartacus’ release. Subscribers will have access to a “downloadable game catalogue,” of around 300 games from PlayStation Now.
The US$16 Premium tier goes a step further, allowing subscribers to play ‘classic games’ with access to cloud streaming and game trials. They also get all the benefits from lower subscription tiers. While Grubb notes that he doesn’t know what exactly qualifies as a ‘classic game’, last year’s Bloomberg report revealed that this Premium tier would include games from the PlayStation, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3 and PSP consoles.
One could look at the Premium tier as a way to access retro games that aren’t playable on the PlayStation 4 or PlayStation 5. For now, these pricing details should be taken with a grain of salt until Sony makes an official announcement on these changes to PlayStation Plus. According to Grubb, Sony could unveil the service as early as March this year. It’s unclear how features such as cloud streaming will work in regions without access to PlayStation Now, so we’ll just have to wait and see.