Bloomberg shared a report in December claiming that PlayStation executives were planning a new service code-named “Spartacus” to take on Xbox Game Pass, one that would allow PlayStation owners to pay a monthly fee to access a catalog of not only modern games but classic titles from the PS1, PS2, PS3, and Vita generations.
One person that doesn’t seem shocked by the news is Microsoft’s own head of Xbox, Phil Spencer. The outspoken executive made that clear in a recent interview with IGN this week, during which he called Sony’s rumored service “the right answer.” While the executive didn’t go so far as to suggest that PlayStation was merely copying Xbox’s playbook, Spencer did explain why he thought services such as Game Pass make sense and were appealing to modern gamers.
“I don’t mean it to sound like we’ve got it all figured out, but I think the right answer is allowing your customers to play the games they wanna play, where they wanna play them, and giving them choice about how they build their library, and being transparent with them about what our plans are in terms of our PC initiatives and our cross-gen initiatives and other things,” Spencer explained.
“So when I hear others doing things like Game Pass or coming to PC, it makes sense to me because I think that’s the right answer.”
Spencer went on to call PlayStation’s rumored game subscription service an “inevitably,” echoing his previous thoughts about how the plan just seems like sensible business. The executive also reiterated his commitment to bringing more new games to both Xbox consoles and PCs on day one.
“I don’t really look at it as validation,” said Spencer. “I actually, when I’m talking to our teams, I talk about it as an inevitability. So for us, we should continue to innovate, continue to compete, because the things that we’re doing might be advantages that we have in the market today, but they’re just based on us going first, not that we’ve created something that no one else can go create.”
“I like it because it feeds our energy on what are the next things that we should be working on as we continue to build out the things that we’ve done in the past. Because I think the right answer is to ship great games, ship them on PC, ship them on console, ship them on cloud, make them available Day 1 in the subscription. And I expect that’s what our competitor will do.”
According to Bloomberg’s report, Sony’s upcoming “Spartacus” service will feature three tiers, the first and second of which will include existing PlayStation Plus benefits and a catalog of PS4 and PS5 games, respectively. The third would add classic PS1, PS2, PS3, and PSP games, as well as game streaming and extended demos.
Source: IGN