Phil Spencer, the leader of the Xbox, says it is "inevitable" that PlayStation will produce its own version of the Xbox Game Pass.
Spencer speaks to IGN and responds to the latest rumors about the future of PlayStation Plus, saying that Game Pass services cater to many player interests and provide a freedom of choice not given elsewhere. He expects Sony to try to emulate the success of the Xbox approach with a similar service for itself.
"I do not think it should sound like we've figured it all out, but I think the right answer is to allow your customers to play the games they want to play, where they want to play them. , and give them choices about how to build their library, and be transparent with them about what our plans are in relation to our PC initiatives and our cross-cutting initiatives and other things, ”he says.
"So when I hear others do things like Game Pass or get to the PC, it makes sense to me because I think that's the right answer."
He adds that the industry's transition to subscription-based services would always happen. Now the question becomes who can innovate or improve that system best in the future.
“When I talk to our team, I talk about it as an inevitability,” Spencer says.
"So for us, we should keep innovating, keep competing, because the things we do may be advantages that we have in the market today, but they are just based on us going first, not that we has created something that no one else can create. "
"Because I think the right answer is to send great games, send them on PC, send them on console, send them on cloud, make them available on day 1 of the subscription. And I expect that's what our competitor will do."
Analysis: the game's streaming wars are coming
The Xbox Game Pass has been one of Microsoft's most received gaming projects for the past few years. Praised by gamers for providing access to a huge game library at a low price, it has also been consistently hailed as a success by Xbox heavyweights, including Spencer.
PlayStation's interest in mimicking this success with its own subscription service - codenamed Spartacus - was only revealed last year in a Bloomberg report, but it came as no surprise to many. A subscription service that integrates you into a console ecosystem while encouraging you to stick with it by constantly giving you more games to dig into has proven just as appealing to gamers as console manufacturers.
As Spencer alludes to here, the bigger question still is how PlayStation will implement the service and what additional features it will provide over the Xbox Game Pass. According to the Bloomberg report, one of its key features will be to provide access to older PS1, PS2 and PS3 titles.
It seems likely that we will find out more details in the near future. The appearance of PS3 games in the PS5 store earlier this week, along with the recent removal of PlayStation Now subscription cards from UK and US retail stores last week, suggests changes to the service. That change could very well be the big one: the announcement that PlayStation Now and PlayStation Plus will be combined for Spartacus.