Xbox, PlayStation and the new subscription normal

engadget.com:

It’s been more than a month since PlayStation Plus Premium went live, cementing the video game industry’s shift toward cloud gaming and subscriptions. PlayStation’s game-streaming scheme is competing directly with Xbox Game Pass, the service that proved the concept by earning more than 25 million subscribers over the past five years, leveraging Microsoft’s massive cloud network.

As the two main console manufacturers and the owners of huge franchises, Sony and Microsoft set the stage for the rest of the video game marketplace, and the transition to streaming subscriptions is no different. Here we’ll break down what they’re each offering and take a look at the industry from the perspective of the cloud.

PlayStation Plus has three tiers: Essential, Extra and Premium. Essential costs $10 a month or $60 a year, and it’s basically the PlayStation Plus you’re used to, offering three games to download each month, access to online multiplayer features, cloud storage and discounts. PS Plus Extra costs $15 a month or $100 a year, and has everything in the Essential tier plus a library of up to 400 downloadable PS4 and PS5 games.

PS Plus Premium costs $18 a month or $120 a year, and adds up to 340 games from past PlayStation consoles. This is also the tier that unlocks cloud gaming, supporting more than 700 titles and adding the ability to stream or download games from older eras. This tier actually replaces PlayStation Now, Sony’s often-underwhelming cloud gaming service that launched on PS4. With PS Plus Premium, cloud gaming is available on PS4, PS5 and PC, but not on mobile devices.

That’s one difference between Sony and Microsoft’s approach, as Xbox titles are playable on mobile devices as well as consoles and PC. But the bigger