The evolution of subscription services in the gaming industry

Pretty much every major video game titan in the corporate industry has some form of subscription to offer a gamer. The most notable being Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo (yes, pre-Switch Nintendo). Here is a brief history of major gaming subscriptions and how they've changed through the years.

PlayStation Plus

Believe it or not, PS Plus wasn't always a paid product. Before the year 2010, for a majority of the PS3's life cycle, you could play games online for free. There was a small subscription for discounts on games, demos, and even some free games. However, what was offered was small compared to what is offered today.

Nowadays, not only do you get monthly free games and discounts, you also get access to their "cloud gaming" (depending on what tier subscription you get). Cloud gaming has been a pretty important part of of the PlayStation Plus subscription. Going on about nine years now, thanks to the "PlayStation Now" subscription, you can stream some of the most popular PS titles. Looking back in the days of the early PS4, their streaming plan was pretty arbitrary compared to the modern PS5. Back then, you could only really stream in 720p and on rare occasion, 1080p. The service itself wasn't the most stable and was always inferior to just downloading the latest free PS Plus games. All of that changed with the release of the PS5.

Most of the innovation of the PS Now service is probably internal, things like servers. Still, thanks to the PS5, it's now possible to stream you favorite games in 4K. Yes that's right, 4K. It's obviously not the most stable service, even now. This is because of the inherent reliance on your internet connection, you aren't always guarantied complete quality in streaming any game. The service is now most useful in playing classic PS2 games and PS3 games that cannot be played with their discs.

Xbox Live

While yes, Xbox Live was originally conceived to offer an online, connected space, much of it's initial success comes from the prospect of technology. How Microsoft used the potential of the Dreamcast's dial-up modem and struck (literal) gold.

Most people consider first conceived capability of Xbox Live to be Halo 2. However, the original Xbox offered something even more revolutionary that served as the little brother to online gaming. That being, downloadable content. You see the PlayStation 2 didn't ship with internet access. The Xbox, since the beginning (Halo CE days), you could download map packs through the internet and directly onto your hard drive. This was of course back when games were literal Megabytes in size. Thanks to the push for online updating and downloading through the original Xbox, Microsoft would be the first to bring about massive scale, completely online connection to consoles.

This is where their single player powerhouse, Halo, comes in. Halo 2 was one of the first games to deliver online multiplayer on a global scale (at least on consoles that is). Thanks to Xbox Live, Halo 2 launched with online multiplayer support and downloadable content. This was a pretty big deal Microsoft's main competitor, Sony, weren't able to introduce online play until the release of the PS3.

Nowadays, a little after Sony, Microsoft has expanded their service to include cloud based games and subscriptions. Arguably more popular than Sony's PS Now, the Xbox Gamepass is seen as the most successful streaming service and gaming service in general. With millions of players worldwide, it's Microsoft's most profitable source of income in their gaming branch.

Nintendo

Nintendo was pretty slow in breaking into the modern "console" market. In turn, it took them a while to set up their own subscription service. Because of this, for about a year into the Nintendo Switch's life cycle, online was free. The reasoning was, to iron out the details about pricing and functionality. Remember, they have to compete with the likes of Sony and Microsoft, those who had been delivering an online experience for over a decade already (one of them anyway).

Their service follows very closely to how Xbox Live and modern PS Plus works. You pay to play online with others and you get some free games every month. Since the Switch is still the latest release of Nintendo's, they have yet to incorporate any type of streaming service. However, they may all change with the release of the Nintendo Switch 2.

Supposedly, this new Switch is said to be as powerful as and Xbox One/PS4. So, even though Sony's initial breakout into cloud gaming was pretty archaic, the Switch 2 may be as capable, maybe. It's worth noting that Nintendo is (obviously) a big company and they definitely have the resources to support the infrastructure for a streaming service. We'll just have to wait and see this new Switch in action.