Grand Theft Auto V is no longer available to stream and download on PlayStation Now, having left the service yesterday alongside God of War, Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, and inFAMOUS: Second Son. This wouldn’t be newsworthy alone, but interestingly Microsoft has announced that the open world crime caper is joining Xbox Game Pass today.
This is fascinating for a few reasons, because it feels like Sony had dibs on the release first. What’s going to be most intriguing, though, is how long the title is available as part of the Redmond firm’s subscription, because it was only available as part of PS Now for 12 weeks. Games do rotate in and out of Xbox Game Pass, but not ordinarily at such pace.
Rockstar probably won’t be too concerned about the details of these deals: it’s clearly using the subscription services as a means to sell more microtransactions in GTA Online – after all, that’s the organisation’s big money spinner these days. But what will be intriguing is whether Sony and Microsoft try to secure “exclusive” rights to third-party titles moving forwards, as the subscription wars heat up.
[source twitter.com]
Comments 33
Sometimes I think you guys report too many Xbox news :b Everyone owns GTAV so this is pointless.
Pffff, you can imagine Xbox executives sniggering while pushing the button. They got one up on Sony this time.
@OscarHTX Well, both may be a way to "rent" games, so to speak, but PS Now is a streaming service, while Gamepass you install your games.
The benefit of the Gamepass model is of course performance, but also the library seems to not really lose games the way PS Now does.
Not a fan of this "us vs them" mentality, pointless at best.
@OscarHTX Game Pass in itself is actually LESS of a value than PS Now.
PS Now - 800+ PS2, PS3, and PS4 games to stream (300+ PS4 games for download), Multiplayer, Cloud Saves
Game Pass (Xbox or PC) - 100+ Xbox, Xbox 360, and Xbox One games for download (or PC games on PC Game Pass) with Day 1 Xbox Game Studios releases. That's it. Multiplayer would still require an Xbox Live Gold account (unless you have PC Game Pass where multiplayer is always free). Cloud saves are 100% free for having an Xbox Live account.
Game Pass Ultimate, however, is a little more robust as it includes Xbox Game Pass AND PC Game Pass, plus all benefits of Xbox Gold (including 4 game downloads per month - 2 you actually own as they are legacy titles).
Game rotation runs on a seemingly longer schedule. I am not even 100% sure if there is a set schedule. Like, all of the Tomb Raider games are there and have never been pulled. Life is Strange was only recently pulled, but Life is Strange 2 has every episode for an unknown amount of time.
Ninja Gaiden (original Xbox) was pulled within the last couple of months and it's been there since Xbox Originals started showing up on Game Pass.
I had a girlfriend like that once
@OscarHTX I can think of a few things to close the gap:
1) Bundle PS+ and PS Now in that you still get the monthly game releases and the discount benefits of PS+ with the PS Now benefits of downloads and streaming to PC.
2) Bring back PSOne and PS2 Classics as downloads for PS5 and make them available as downloads through the service.
3) Longshot - Introduce PS3 Classics as downloads for PS5 and make them available as downloads through the service.
Anyone who really wants GTA V owns it by now I am pretty sure, so this doesn't really matter. Now if it was a much newer game then I can see how this could matter but I doubt anyone who has PSNow or Xbox Game Pass is getting the service for GTA V.
@GamingFan4Lyf Well, you can argue a lot of quantity over quality here. PS Now just started adding recent titles (and they don't stay there for long) while in GamesPass you can play games that came out a few months ago. Before adding GoW and Uncharted 4 the most recent game you could play on PS Now was MK10
@OscarHTX I agree. I’d certainly go for a PS+ Premium - style sub package over two separate subs
@Athrum I don't have PS Now to gauge the quality of titles. But, yes, Game Pass is relatively current with it's releases.
I do have Game Pass Ultimate until 2021 thanks to 3 months of Game Pass Ultimate converting the remainder of my 2 years of Gold into an Ultimate subscription. I really like it - plenty of titles on my radar that I just don't seem to have the time to play, LOL!
I understand doing it to recent games but It's very bizarre that old PS4 titles weren't added permanently on PS Now.
@PcTV PSNow is streaming for PS3 titles, but PS2 and PS4 games you install just like with Gamepass.
@DeepSpace5D Wait so you can't stream PS4 games?
@GamingFan4Lyf Yeah it's what I did as well. Since there's a lull on releases that interest me until March, I actually bought a Xbox S on black friday for 150€ with 3 months of GamePass and I'm playing quite a few games that I haven't had the change to try like DMCV, Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Afterparty.
PS Now is still not on par with GamePass in my opinion, but with the next-gen here and a more even player-base (which I believe it will happen) they'll need to step up their game.
@PcTV You always have the option to stream, but you can install them at your choice as well.
@OscarHTX
Both my sons are currently using a 3 months for $1 Xbox Gamepass subscription on PC - we dont' own an Xbox but we used to and they both had accounts - and I know the games have been downloaded to their PCs, not streaming. So it's there if you want to check it out, at least on PC.
https://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-game-pass
I also know the PC games list is different form the Xbox games list. Xbox has Untitled Goose and PC doesn't, I also think Xbox is getting Ori 2 about a month before PC. Unless it's just releasing a month earlier on Xbox but only coming to Gaempass a month later, guess thats a possibility.
I bought my son a 1 month PS Now subscription so he can play Lost Legacy, the only Uncharted game he hasn't played yet. I haven't set it up yet b/c he's busy playing on Gamepass. Also he has a child account and I'm not sure PS Now works based on all the complaining online. He also has a UK account which I doubt will work in the US, so I basically need to set him up a US account and lie about his age just to make sure.
@GamingFan4Lyf explained more than I knew though even having them.
Yet down here at the butthole of the world, we still don’t even know what it’s like to even have PSNow to even give it a try. Game pass however was available straight away in Aus/NZ. With no communication from Sony ever
@GamingFan4Lyf Adding PSP and Vita Games to the service would be great as well
@Shepard93n7 I don’t own it and have never played it. You’re not the only person in the room.
Streaming games will have the same problems as streaming any other media: licences running out and games dropping in and out of availability. More anti consumer garbage.
There is no logical reason for rotating the games on offer. Just add to the list! Don’t subtract!
PSNow has never been available in Australia, where I live. Very frustrating when entire markets are seen as an afterthought or put in the too hard basket
@shagwah I hear you dude. Australia’s Internet is like that of a third world country
Game pass is great but so is PS Now. It boggles my mind that Sony doesn't push it more because in a lot of ways it outdoes GP by a wide margin. Really hope it's more of a focus on the PS5.
In terms of GTAV I think I may be one of the few left on the planet that hasn't played it yet lol. If it comes to Now I guess I'll give it a shot
I use gamepass on my One S Digital only... It's a great service / value. Sony really needs to push their Now Service. Why Sony exclusive titles leave Now is beyond me. Meanwhile this somehow reminds me of the amazon prime video and netflix rotations... after all the movies that I want to watch are not available on both of them
Since PS Now went to a temporary model, I see no value in it whatsoever. Who realistically has time to play GTA V, Uncharted 4, GOW AND Infamous all within 3 months? Not to mention the other temp games added the following month and the month after that. So, in effect if you took 3 months to play that lot, then you then only have 1 more month to play the next months games that were added (Shadow of War and Persona 5).
No need to sub to this service again I don't think. Shame as it was just about getting decent value for money. Just like PS Plus, Sony seem hellbent on trolling customers by making their services worse.
The worst is that it will stay on the service for 12 months!
why does this site keep mentioning Xbox is it a Playstation site or do you want to be multiplatform!
Games leave the service?... Well now I definitely know buffet subscriptions aren't for me. Even if they got the quality of the streams sorted out, this whole model of titles popping in and out seems very unappealing. Not to mention the sheer volume of tat among the few good games.
Well i have been a ps only player since the begining, i recently saw xbox for 179 with star wars,was really tempted with it just to play some of ths xbox exclusives had a look at the games available on game pass, there were some good games available for someone who has never played xbox, but the sub after the offer of a quid, went up to 12 quid, which i thought was a bit expensive as i only really wanted to play forza, the halo games and gears games, after that i could get most of the games on ps, i actually thought i could prob get the games i wanted to play a lot more cheaper in the long run if i actually bought the games 2nd hand. I actually put my coat on had money on pocket, what actually stoped me getting on xbox in the end was batteries for the controller i mean cmon xbox is so stupid not making the controllers without batteries it bloody 2020 ffs, i dont want to be having a late night session and running out of battery. I know you can get rechargable batteries but still cmon. Think i will stay with the ps as i know i get the best games available and no bloody batteries. Even the original nintendo and sega md had no batteries lol
Rockstar i laughing i just know he we make money of a game everybody owns. 🤣🤣🤣🤣
A better story would've been about the Hong Kong protests being acted out in GTA Online.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-50894769
@Arnna Rotating 3rd party games is more logical than you think. This can be logically decided from both sides. The license owner of popular content can leverage a better deal from a competitor instead of renewing their existing contract. Alternatively, if a streaming service is paying for a content that no one using, it doesn't make sense to renew the contract and pay extra for content that doesn't attract revenue.
Rotating their first party games like Uncharted and God of War is a bit more tricky. I don't think they were ready to release the games permanently to PS Now. The games probably still sell enough. I'm thinking it's an experiment to see how many gamers that got a taste of the games and enjoyed them will now buy the games permanently, or it could just have been a test to see if it having limited time games would encourage gamers to subscribe immediately to check the games out, instead of waiting indefinitely to check subscribe for another month. Maybe they hope for both.
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