Ever since the rumours about the new PlayStation Plus service were floating around and its subsequent announcement, fans have wondered if Sony would follow the Xbox game pass model. Xbox’s Game Pass has Xbox exclusives (Xbox has exclusives?) show up on the service on day one of the games’ launch. PlayStation fans thought that Sony would perhaps follow suit and offer PlayStation Studios titles on PlayStation Plus.
Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan has previously stated that the company would not have their AAA exclusive on PS Plus at launch. Now Sony CFO Hiroki Totoki has re-iterated the same thing saying that it would “deteriorate” the quality of Sony’s first-party games.
When asked about first-party games on PlayStation Plus, Totoki told investors: “I will refrain from making comments about the competitor’s strategy.” Totoki stated that if first-party games were to be included in the subscription service at launch, then Sony would need to reduce the development budgets of the games.
And AAA type titles for PlayStation 5, if we distribute that on the subscription services, we need to shrink the ivnestment needed for that would deterioate the first-party title quality and that’s our concern.
Sony will increase game development investment
Although PlayStation exclusives won’t be available on the new PlayStation Plus service at launch, PlayStation Exclusives such as Returnal will be available.
Sony’s CFO has also said during a speech to investors that the company will invest a further 40 billion Yen (about £254 million) in its first-party software at its existing studios.
“In addition, we plan to increase software development expenses aimed at strengthening first party software at our existing studios by approximately 40 billion yen year-on-year.”
Sony plans to further strengthen its first-party development capabilities further and Sony’s CFO Hiroki Totoki sited the acquisition of Haven and Bungie.
