As Ryan revealed in a recent update, Sony is “making fantastic progress” so the company will start rolling out the service “a little earlier in select markets in Asia, followed by Japan.” To be more specific, the updated target release dates are now the following:
Asia (except Japan) - May 23 Japan - June 1 Americas - June 13 Europe - June 22
In addition to the release date, Ryan added that PlayStation is expanding cloud streaming to other countries (mostly European). All 30 markets (including the new additions) will enjoy access to the Premium Tier of PS Plus at launch. Sony officially confirmed the long-rumored Project Spartacus last month, giving the console manufacturer a more competent offering that, in theory, stacks up better against the Xbox Game Pass. It drew mixed reactions following the initial announcement and fans still don’t know what to make of it. On one hand, the new PS Plus is the old PS Plus and PS Now rolled into one and split into three tiers: Essential, Extra, and Premium. The Essential tier is self-explanatory - it’s the current PS Plus for the same price. The Extra Tier is a bit more expensive and adds a catalog of up to 400 PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 games. Finally, the Premium tier gives you all the same benefits along with another 340 more games that include PS3 titles via cloud streaming, as well as older PS1, PS2, and PSP games, and even time-limited demos. However, for markets without cloud streaming, the most expensive tier is Deluxe, which is similar to Premium but without cloud streaming. On paper, the multi-tier approach looks good. In theory, the new subscription should let current PlayStation Plus subscribers enjoy the same benefits while giving them the option to upgrade to a better service if they want to try out something else. Unfortunately, Sony still hasn’t clarified how upgrading works for those with existing PS Plus subscriptions, although there are reports that all subscribers need to do is to pay the difference. We should get more clarification on this matter as we inch closer to the official launch of the retooled PS Plus. For now, you might want to catch up on Sony’s eventful April. For starters, insiders believe that Sony is working on making PS3 emulation available on the PS5. Meanwhile, rumors suggest that Sony has acquired Kojima Productions with some claiming that the company’s next acquisition is so much bigger than just a one-title studio. Also, Sony dug deep into its coffers earlier this month to make a billion-dollar investment in Epic Games.
