Who Wins?
Xbox Live’s Games with Gold makes enough of a case for itself to offer a little more incentive for purchase than does PS Plus’ Instant Games Collection. If you’re looking at things from purely an eighth generation perspective, Games with Gold offers more in the form of what you can play on a singular device. The Instant Games Collection does a good job at providing a myriad of titles to play across PlayStation’s ecosystem of hardware, but in doing so takes away from the PS4 to give more to the Vita and PS3.
It’s worth noting that should you have a Vita and still play on PS3, PS Plus still provides a ton of incentive to take part in its service. This isn’t even mentioning the fact that you’re simultaneously building your PS4 library of games to play later on once you’re back home.
Considering both of these and comparing them to the PC landscape, each still makes a solid case for purchase to access online capabilities, though as years pass that argument will begin to fade. Microsoft and Sony shouldn’t rest on their laurels and find new ways to make their subscriptions attractive lest they start losing their followings to Gabe Newell’s machinations.
