PS Plus won’t beat Xbox Game Pass, and that’s why I’m sold

digitaltrends.com:

Sony’s revamped PS Plus service was under the microscope before it was even announced. As soon as journalists caught wind of the company’s rumored “Spartacus” service, fans began speculating about how it would stack up against Xbox Game Pass. When Sony formally revealed its plans and noted that PS Plus wouldn’t feature new launch day releases, many immediately wrote the service off as an unworthy competitor.

Today, Sony made a key pit stop on the road to the service’s June 13 launch. The company released a long list of “some” of the games that will launch with PS Plus. The list includes recent PS5 hits like Returnal and classic titles dating back to the PS1. It isn’t an exhaustive list of all the PlayStation’s greatest hits, but it’ll bring series like Ape Escape, Jax and Daxter, and Ratchet & Clank games to modern consoles.

Based on the lineup, PS Plus isn’t looking like it’ll go toe-to-toe with Game Pass. However, that’s because the two services aren’t in the same ring. PS Plus has a different value entirely, one that’s built around the past, not the present.

Those who subscribe to the top tier of PS Plus in June will get a whole slew of games pulled from PlayStation’s history, plus a handful of third-party titles. The latter is the closest the service comes to competing with Game Pass, and it’s the least enticing part of the subscription at present. Several of the included games, like Mortal Kombat 11 and Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, are already included with Xbox Game Pass. It’ll be exciting news for those exclusively in the PlayStation ecosystem, but those titles don’t present a lot of new value for Game Pass subscribers.

Instead, Sony’s ace in the hole is history. The classic game lineup is filled with iconic