Xbox head honcho Phil Spencer has spoken his piece on the rumors of PlayStation creating a streaming service similar to Game Pass, saying that its arrival, whenever it happens, is inevitable.
In an interview with IGN, Spencer addressed the rumors about the service, codenamed Spartacus, which is set to overhaul PlayStation Plus and phase out PlayStation Now. Spencer said that he doesn’t see PlayStation’s efforts to emulate Xbox’s model of mixing games from older console generations with new and upcoming games and making them part of the streaming service as validation. Rather, he expects it because the gaming industry is constantly figuring out ways to make certain old games backwards compatible while still offering players a means of playing newer games at a modest price.
“I don’t really look at it as validation. I actually, when I’m talking to our teams, I talk about it as an inevitability. So for us, we should continue to innovate, continue to compete, because the things that we’re doing might be advantages that we have in the market today, but they’re just based on us going first, not that we’ve created something that no one else can go create,” Spencer said, adding that he expects Sony to “ship great games” to every platform, even the cloud, and make them part of the subscription on Day 1.
Xbox has already made several original Xbox and Xbox 360 games backwards compatible for Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S and programmed them to be played at 60fps with twice to quadruple the resolution, including Dragon Age: Origins, Alan Wake, Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, Sonic Unleashed, and Sonic Generations.
Sony recently filed a patent suggesting backwards compatibility could be rolled out to the PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4, which would allow them to run PS3, PS2, and PS1 games without impediments to both consoles. Further adding to Spencer deeming Spartacus inevitable is PS Now cards being pulled from retailers, as Sony intends to merge PS Now and PS Plus into one subscription.
