New reports have revealed Sony's layout for the Playstation Network's new subscription plan named Spartacus, and the service already looks worse than the Xbox's Game Pass. Spartacus appears to be Sony's long-awaited response to the successful Game Pass, which grants players access to hundreds of games for a subscription of just $10 a month. However, Sony may have missed the reason why Microsoft's subscription is so beloved, as the initial report indicates that it has a tier system that creates a paywall for players to access older PlayStation classics.
Sony's upcoming alteration to Playstation Network subscriptions looks to combine its existing plans PlayStation Plus and PlayStation Now, phase out the latter of the two, and allow players access to both new PS4 and PS5 titles and retro PlayStation games through Spartacus. This follows the trend of Sony's competitors Microsoft and Nintendo, whose Game Pass and Switch Online plans offer a catalog of nostalgic games. Indeed, Sony is even following in line with the tiered structures of both of these plans with Spartacus, as both the Game Pass and Switch Online have two tiers that offer players more features and content the more they are willing to pay.
However, Spartacus appears to fail where the Game Pass and Switch Online have succeeded. Sony's tier structure will be much more exclusive than those of its competitors, especially the Game Pass, which already offers an incredible amount of bonuses for consumers who opt for the lowest tier. As things currently stand - and although it's still only rumored - Spartacus's three-tiered structure sounds as if it will be more expensive, more complex, and less accessible than Microsoft's equivalent, with Game Pass offering launch-day titles like Halo Infinite and classic Xbox games alike.
PlayStation's Spartacus could compete with Game Pass with a wide library of titles to access, but it may suffer if it only allows access to older games at the highest tier subscription. Spartacus will supposedly have three tiers, in which the second tier offers PS4 and PS5 games and only the highest offers titles from earlier Sony consoles. This is a far cry from Microsoft's Game Pass that offers all of the Xbox games in hits highest tier to its lowest tier. The only games Microsoft withholds from consumers who are not on its most expensive subscription plans are applications on other platforms such as cellphones. Additionally, the highest tier comes with a Gold level membership with Xbox Live, which is a huge bonus that makes the highest subscription tier genuinely valuable. Even when compared to Switch Online's problems with its N64 titles, Spartacus's paywall for retro games feels a lot worse because it is purposely limiting players' access to classic titles.
With rumors that Spartacus is set to release in early 2022, there is still hope that Sony will tinker with its tiered structure to make retro games easier to access for all players. These older games are nostalgic for many, and the subscription plan may be fans' only way to play them again. Xbox has already done better than PlayStation when it comes to backward compatibility, and Spartacus should go some way in addressing that. Restricting portions of its library is disappointing though, and another area where Microsoft is out-competing its rivals.
