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PlayStation plans 3 Spartacus tiers for as much as $16 per month (GamesBeat)

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kingfey

Banned

Sony is looking to expand PlayStation Plus by introducing new features and by integrating elements from PlayStation Now. Bloomberg originally reported about these efforts — which Sony internally calls “Spartacus” — in December. But now GamesBeat can provide some more info on what these new offerings look like.

Spartacus is an evolution of PlayStation Plus with three tiers. It currently calls those tiers Essential, Extra, and Premium — although those names could change between now and when the service launches. The subscription for these programs is monthly and starts at $10 and goes up to $16. And what do each of those tiers get you? Here’s the current plan:

Monthly gamesGame catalogueStreamingClassic
games
Game trialsPrice
PS+ EssentialX$10
PS+ ExtraXX$13
PS+ PremiumXXXXX$16
PS+ Essential is the PS+ that you already know. For $10 per month, you get monthly games that you can add to your library. This works a lot like it already works today.

PS+ Extra, meanwhile, gets you the monthly games and a game catalogue for $13 per month. The game catalogue is a library of hundreds of older, downloadable games. This seems like Sony ripped the download catalogue out of PS Now and popped it into PS+ instead.

PS+ Premium gets you all of the above and then everything else for $16 per month. That everything else includes PS Now’s streaming capabilities. You also get a library of “classic games” as well as a new “game trials” feature. Game trials enables you to download and start playing the full versions of new PlayStation games. This likely has a time-limit function, which is similar to how game trials work on the EA Play service from Electronic Arts.

Again, all of these prices and names could change. But this is the general outline of what to expect from Spartacus. And these features should make PS Plus look much stronger in comparison to Xbox Game Pass. While Sony will not include full versions of its blockbuster games in PS Plus on day one, game trials will at least give a bigger audience a chance to sample those games.

Sony is moving into a testing phase for Spartacus in the next few weeks. And it could announce the details of its new membership program in March — although that’ll depend on whether it is ready to roll out the service.
 

Trogdor1123

Member
Classic games and streaming in the same tier… gee. I wonder why

Edit: and I ruined the streak…
 
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AGRacing

Gold Member
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lh032

I cry about Xbox and hate PlayStation.
16 dollar for the highest tier is fine, i just wanna know what spartacus can offer.
 

mckmas8808

Banned
It’ll probably be $59.99, $79.99 and $99.99.
For $99 a year are they just combining PS+ and PSNow? I can't tell still even with this chart lol.

Like.............is Sony going to keep PS Now with Spartacus being a separate subscription?
 
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demigod

Member
For $99 a year are they just combining PS+ and PSNow? I can't tell still even with this chart lol.

Like.............is Sony going to keep PS Now with Spartacus being a separate subscription?
Yeah i think it’ll be combined and psnow name will be gone. Hell it’s already $59.99 for 12 months. Why not combine it with plus for more of a discount to entice new folks to the service?
 

mckmas8808

Banned
Yeah i think it’ll be combined and psnow name will be gone. Hell it’s already $59.99 for 12 months. Why not combine it with plus for more of a discount to entice new folks to the service?

Wow, you're right. So now PS+ and PS Now are a combined $120 a year ($10 a month average). So you think it'll be best for Sony to lose the $20 a year (or $1.66 a month average) just to make selling the package that much easier? Hmmmm..........I think you're right. And this should be the NUMBER ONE test for Jim Ryan. If he keeps PS Now separate, he should be fired on the spot! But if he combines it and tosses in PSVR2 games......he should get a 10% or more raise and a fat bonus for the 2022 year.
 

Pallas

Member
I remember hearing or seeing an article about them adding a streaming service to PS Plus, something like Funimation/Crunchyroll subscription, iirc. Wonder if that will be a thing for the highest tier in the future.

I hope it’s yearly subscription on the two new tiers are competitively priced, I feel like it’ll need to be cheaper for it to really compete with what it’s offering compare to Gamepass Ultimate. Will be interesting to see what that classic library of games will have, hoping it’s not just first party games.
 

The_Mike

I cry about SonyGaf from my chair in Redmond, WA
There should be some sort of discount t if you pay for it all at once, no?
I know, just tried to be fun in case there's no discount.

I don't even think that game pass has a discount but just on a monthly basis, which sucks as well.
This is a lie! PS+ is $10 a month now if you buy it monthly. It's $5 a month if you buy it yearly. And it's $3 a month is you get the CD Keys sales once a year for the yearly plan.
PS plus is a different service, and I was just taking the highest tier price and added 12 months on it.
Dead on arrival if higher than game pass with no day one aaa titles.
Pretty hard to call it dead on arrival when the users doesn't have a choice and can only get the one their walled gardens offers.

Also, Sony has 3 times as many users as xbox, of course not calculated pc users since any potential pc user can use game pass, but it will still end up with spartakus at least being on par, but probably outsell game pass, even if it's a worse service by the simple fact that PlayStation has many more users to begin with.
 

mckmas8808

Banned
Dead on arrival if higher than game pass with no day one aaa titles.

I get tired of hearing about GamePass, but you're right. And why would Sony make it $1 more than Gamepass? It's like they are pricing it that way on purpose to make it a talking point against them. MS would DESTORY them in PR\marketing if the top-tier of Spartacus is $16.
 

RPS37

Member
I know, just tried to be fun in case there's no discount.

I don't even think that game pass has a discount but just on a monthly basis, which sucks as well.
Word. Game Pass has that crazy upgrade Gold to Ultimate for 1 dollar deal.
 
Wait so they’re going to make the regular subscription worse while keeping the price to make the mid tier have the features of the regular ps plus but cost more? Lmao am I reading this correctly wtf ?
 

Kagey K

Banned
Wait so they’re going to make the regular subscription worse while keeping the price to make the mid tier have the features of the regular ps plus but cost more? Lmao am I reading this correctly wtf ?
No tier 1 is current PS+, 2 is PS+ and Now combined and 3 is those two plus "not Gamepass"
 
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