PlayStation CEO Insists First-Party Games Will Remain ‘Clean and Pure’

In a recent discussion with GameIndustry, PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan had a lot to say about the company’s commitment to their cloud-streaming service PS Now, the latter of which received a substantial price drop last month.

PS Now may have surpassed one million subscribers since its price drop, but it’s no secret that the similar subscription service Game Pass has been a massive hit for Microsoft across Xbox and PC, adding all first-party titles day one on the for no additional charge. Still, Ryan is adamant that the first-party launches on PlayStation are worthy of being kept separated from PS Now for the foreseeable future.

“It’s an area that is fast changing and fluid. The nature and scale of some of the first-party games that we are making leads us to think that, right now, it’s better to spend energy on making sure that the launch of those games is a massive entertainment event. I would cite God of War and Spider-Man, and The Last of Us 2 next year will fall into that category.

That’s where we stand right now. But our stance on the inclusion of first-party games in PS Now in terms of what we’ve done this month is very different to our stance 12 months ago. I don’t want to say this is what PS Now is going to be like forever. But certainly right now, given how some of our first party IP is incredibly special and valuable, we just want to treat them with amazing care and respect, and have those launches be clean and pure.”

It’s yet to be seen if the value of PS Now will continue to appeal to gamers long-term next to Microsoft’s consistently impressive Game Pass offerings and Google’s new cloud-streaming Stadia, but for now, it’s safe to say that Sony’s subscription service is on an upswing.

Has the PS Now price drop convinced you to join up? How do you feel about Sony’s reluctance to launch games on the service day one? Let us know in the comments below.