The long-rumored PlayStation Plus competitor for Xbox Game Pass -- codenamed "Spartacus" -- is going to be revealed as early as next week according to a new report.
Late last year, we first heard tell of an Xbox Game Pass competitor coming from Sony in the near future. Fuel was added to the first earlier this year when Sony confirmed that it was pulling PlayStation Now game cards from stores in Europe, hinting that the shift could be coming soon. Now, a new report claims that this PlayStation Plus Game Pass competitor could be revealed pretty soon.
What We Know About PlayStation Plus' Spartacus Program
A new report from Bloomberg's Jason Schreier (via Reddit) says that Sony is expected to reveal its new version of PlayStation Plus as early as next week. These changes to the program -- which are apparently code-named "Spartacus" -- would represent an ambitious improvement for PS Plus, but it would also have some issues.
As previously reported, Spartacus is expected to have three available tiers. The first tier will include all current PS Plus benefits. The second tier will add a catalog of PS4 and PS5 games that can be played at any time the subscription is active, similar to Xbox Game Pass. The third and most expensive tier will add in PlayStation Now features for streaming a library of games from PS1, PS2, PS3, and PSP along with access to extended demos.
Sounds great, right? Unfortunately, it looks like there might be a bit of a hiccup -- sources speaking to Bloomberg also note that this competitor is "unlikely" to have day 1 launches for first-party titles like we see with Xbox Game Pass. Xbox's formula has been a resounding success for developers, so it's somewhat odd to see Sony holding back here.
If this report is indeed accurate, one has to wonder if the lack of first-party titles on launch day will hinder Sony's efforts to launch these PlayStation Plus changes. Hopefully, we'll hear more concrete details about Spartacus sooner rather than later.