Sony Interactive Entertainment Yoshida Shuhei: We believe in full-price distribution more than subscription system

At GI Live in London, a gaming conference held by Gamesindustry.biz, PlayStation head of indie games Shuhei Yoshida spoke about Sony's approach to improving the PS Plus service, especially regarding its top-of-the-line version, Extra.

Unlike Microsoft's Game Pass subscription service, most first-party Xbox games will be available on XGP at launch, but Yoshida said Sony still believes that "games should be released at full price when they are released."

Older versions of PS Plus had some games that included subscription services at launch, such as Rocket League and Jelly Bean, which Yoshida said really helped their success because it made these multiplayer online games fast Get a lot of players. But the new multi-level PS Plus service will take a different route.

For developers and publishers, the added value of the service lies elsewhere, providing games with an additional revenue stream later in their life cycle, just like movies, he explained.

"The new PSPlus has tiers, it's essentially like the old PS Plus, we still release two or three new games a month, and the new tier Extra has a catalog of hundreds of games for people to play. For Extra, our The way is, we want to help publishers with lifecycle management. I manage first-party titles at PlayStation, so I know it's like in a movie: first in theaters, then it becomes pay-per-view, or joins a subscription Services, or free on TV, generate new revenue and reach a wider audience each time.”

"In the same way, we believe that at launch at full price, maybe six months, three months or three years later, when sales of games drop, the inclusion of the PSPlus Extra service can help bring those games to the table. Introduce to a new, wider audience. Some people may have missed these games when they came out, it's a great opportunity to generate word of mouth, or if there's a DLC or a sequel, we can help increase interest in these games , and make the series known to a wider audience."

"We therefore encourage publishers to take advantage of these services to manage the lifecycle of each title."

At the end of the talk, he said that the subscription service is "still experimental for Sony right now," but Lost, which launched alongside the PS Plus Extra on the first day, is a good example of the service's success.

His comments echo those of PlayStation boss Jim Ryan, who told GI.biz in March that platform holders could be affected if their games go directly to the subscription service at launch.