Sony is said to be making a service similar to Xbox Game Pass, where customers can play the games in the catalog without having to buy the game.
Yes, Sony currently has two subscription services, namely PlayStation Plus, which is needed to play multiplayer games online, and PlayStation Now, which offers certain games that can be downloaded or played by streaming.
But the two services are reportedly going to be combined, and the name that will be used is probably PlayStation Plus.
This service is internally named 'Spartacus', and will have three tiers. The first tier will contain everything that was previously on PlayStation Plus, then the second tier will contain a catalog of PS4 games and later PS5 games, while the third tier will contain game demos, streaming games, and a catalog of PS1, PS2, PS3, and PSP games.
This new PlayStation Plus seems besides being available for PS5 users it will also be able to be enjoyed by PS4 users. The release itself will reportedly occur in the spring of 2022.
Sony has certainly not issued an official statement regarding this Xbox Game Pass-style service. It is also not known whether this service will run on top of Microsoft Azure, whose cooperation contract has been signed since 2019.
It's interesting that the service runs on Azure, which means that Sony uses the same platform as its competitors.
Xbox Game Pass itself -- especially the Ultimate tier -- is arguably the Xbox's main advantage over Sony's consoles. You could say this service is the Netflix of games, where customers can access and play games for free from the existing catalog, with a relatively affordable subscription fee. That is USD 15 per month (or even cheaper).
Not only that, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers can also access the latest games created by Microsoft since the first day the game was released. However, it seems that this feature will not be available on the PlayStation Plus.