PlayStation maintains that it still won’t release first-party games on PS Plus on day one
Adding 4-5 day one indie games per year and adding first-party games after 12-18 months is “working really well”, it says
PlayStation’s policy of not releasing its first-party games on PlayStation Plus on the day of the release will continue, according to a company exec.
In an interview with Game File, PlayStation‘s vice president of global services Nick Maguire was asked whether the company was considering changing its PlayStation Plus policy to match that of Xbox, where first-party releases are added to the top tier of its Game Pass service on day one.
Maguire replied that it wasn’t, insisting that the company’s policy of adding its first-party games at least a year after launch, and instead selecting four or five indie games per year to add to PS Plus, was working for Sony.
“We’ve sort of stayed true to our strategy across the board, where we’re not looking to put games in day and date,” he explained.
“Our strategy of finding four or five independent day-and-date titles – and using that to complement our strategy of bringing games in when they’re 12, 18 months old or older – that balance for us is working really well across the platform.”
When the PS4 launched, Housemarque‘s Resogun was made available on launch day for PlayStation Plus subscribers. It later did the same for PS5 title Destruction All-Stars in February 2021, but since then the company has remained resolute in its policy of not adding new first-party games to the service on day one.
Third-party games that have been released on PS Plus on the day of release in recent years have included FBC: Firebreak, The Plucky Squire, Dave the Diver, Animal Well, Tales of Kenzera: Zau and Stray.
Maguire was also asked about the PlayStation Classics catalogue, which is available to PlayStation Plus subscribers on the Premium tier. In terms of retro games being added to the service, he said Sony is “trying to bringing in one a month minimum”.
Asked why some first-party Sony retro games, such as two Resistance games and Infamous Second Son, had been removed from the catalogue in recent months, Maguire replied that Sony wanted to balance the catalogue.
“We’ve got 80 collections of games across the catalogue,” he replied. “So we want to keep it fresh and bring in new games. Sometimes that means taking a few games out at the same time to keep the proposition interesting and help people find new games as well.”
