Sony Won't Put Its New First-Party Games On A Subscription Service Because It's Not 'Sustainable'

Sony has said that the company doesn't plan to bring its new first-party games to a Game Pass-like subscription service because it wouldn't be "sustainable." Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan broke the news in an interview with GamesIndustry.Biz. The interview noted the surprising reveal of the PlayStation Plus Collection during the PS5 conference, which will bring a library of the PS4's best games to the console, available to PlayStation Plus subscribers for free. In light of this news, Ryan was asked whether PlayStation might follow Microsoft's lead in bringing all of its future first-party games to a subscription service upon the day of release. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/09/16/ps5-release-date-trailer"] "For us, having a catalogue of games is not something that defines a platform," Ryan told GamesIndustry.Biz. "Our pitch, as you've heard, is 'new games, great games.' We have had this conversation before -- we are not going to go down the road of putting new releases titles into a subscription model. These games cost many millions of dollars, well over $100 million, to develop. We just don't see that as sustainable." Ryan added that Sony's ambition is to make games "bigger and better, and hopefully at some stage more persistent." A day-one first-party subscription model like Game Pass wouldn't suit that ambition for PlayStation. "We want to expand and grow our existing ecosystem, and putting new games into a subscription model just doesn't sit with that." In other PS5 news, Ryan recently told Famitsu that the PS5 won't be backwards compatible with PS3, PS2 or PS1 games. You can also check out our list of all the PlayStation 5 launch games to prepare you for the console's November release. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Jordan Oloman is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.