Total Monetary Value
Seeing as how a full year’s subscription to access either Games with Gold or the Instant Games Collection doesn’t come cheap, you’d best expect that each service offers users frugal incentive to keep them coming back for more. Both Microsoft and Sony fight an ongoing battle against the PC gaming space to justify a charge for internet services, not to mention the sometimes ridiculous discounts that digital PC storefronts Steam and GOG offer. Though it can be argued that a lot of incentive in buying a premium online subscription for the Xbox One or the PS4 also comes in the form of each platform’s respective sales, the real draw is in the amount they save users in free games every month.
Keep in mind that the following numbers are indicative of game value upon their initial introduction to each respective service. Games with Gold’s free games netted users a combined retail total of $1,029.52 this year whereas the Instant Games Collection netted users a combined retail total of $1287.25. This amounts to roughly $21 a title for each Xbox One game in Games with Gold and $17 a title for each PS4, PS Vita, and PS3 games in the Instant Games Collection. When only taking PS4 games into account, the value jumps to $31 a title.
In this case it’s very easy to claim that Games with Gold is the winner when purely taking eighth generation titles into consideration. If you’re looking for incentive to save money, the Xbox One and its online service provides a better case per title than does Sony with just the PS4.
