Sony reportedly readying an Xbox Game Pass competitor service

Sony may soon have an answer to the gaming subscription behemoth of Microsoft, Xbox Game Pass. A report from Bloomberg says the company has a new service planned to debut in the spring of 2022. Code-named Spartacus, it is supposed to offer three tiers of services when it goes online for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5.

Bloomberg's sources include multiple persons close to the project and internal documents of Sony, which it had reviewed.

Currently, Sony offers two major gaming-related subscriptions, PlayStation Plus and PlayStation Now, with the former offering online play and monthly bonus games while the latter has classic and some modern PlayStation games for both download and streaming. The Spartacus service is reportedly combining the features of the two programs and axing the PlayStation Now branding.

While the details are not finalized yet, in the documents seen by Bloomberg, the first tier of the service would offer the current PlayStation Plus features, while the second tier will bring a "large catalog of PlayStation 4 and, eventually, PlayStation 5 games." Extended demos, cloud gaming support, and classic PlayStation 1, 2, 3, and PSP titles are planned for the third tier. Pricing information is still in the dark.

For $10 or $15 a month, Microsoft's Xbox Game Pass currently offers day one access to all first-party titles alongside a large library of games from other publishers. If the rival program from Sony turns out to be a real thing, it will be interesting to see how the games library evolves over there, and if day one subscription releases for mega-popular PlayStation exclusives will be a thing too.