PlayStation CEO says high studio investments prevent day one PS Plus launches

nme.com:

PlayStation‘s online service offering, CEO Jim Ryan has explained why new console exclusives aren’t likely to come to the service on day one.Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Ryan explained that putting PlayStation’s own titles into services like these at launch is “not a road that we’ve gone down in the past.

And it’s not a road that we’re going to go down with this new service.”Ryan explained: “We feel like we are in a good virtuous cycle with the studios, where the investment delivers success, which enables yet more investment, which delivers yet more success.

We like that cycle and we think our gamers like that cycle.”Ryan added: “We feel if we were to do that with the games that we make at PlayStation Studios, that virtuous cycle will be broken.

The level of investment that we need to make in our studios would not be possible, and we think the knock-on effect on the quality of the games that we make would not be something that gamers want.”Sony spends big on console titles like Horizon Forbidden West, and it does seem to work in terms of sales, with the likes of Guerrilla Games’ Horizon Zero Dawn sequel becoming the second biggest PlayStation 5 launch so far, only behind launch title Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales.Xbox Game Pass offering day one first-party titles such as Halo Infinite or Forza Horizon 5, is a huge positive for Xbox players, but Ryan isn’t suggesting that PlayStation will never do this. “All I’m talking to today is the approach we’re taking in the short term” he said, adding “the way our publishing model works right now, it doesn’t make any sense.