PlayStation Now Service Reportedly Expanding to India | Game Rant
Sony has been promoting its own gaming subscription service since 2014, PlayStation Now, with its primary competition being Microsoft's Xbox Game Pass. Now that the PlayStation 5 is available, Sony is continuing to push PlayStation Now even more.
Due to the pandemic, some of Sony's plans for the PlayStation 5 and PlayStation Now were put on hold. However, recent reports suggest Sony may still pursue its plan to expand the PS Now service internationally, including to the country of India. However, there are still hurdles that could work against the company's goal to expand PS Now in India.
According to a report by IGN India, Sony is mulling over plans to expand the PS Now service into India, while raising awareness of its other game initiatives too. This includes the Play At Home initiative as well as PlayStation Plus Collection for the PS5. Several of the anonymous sources quoted by IGN suggest both would help Sony maintain a presence until it announces its potential rival to Xbox Game Pass.
However, some problems are getting in the way. Most notably, the PS5's availability. According to IGN India, when the PS5 first launched in India, it had fewer than 4,000 units imported to the country, and they were all the disc versions. Reportedly, the company is working on restocking the PS5 there, but Sony has not officially confirmed the PS5 restock date for India as of this writing.
Another big issue for Sony in India is the pricing for the PS5's exclusive games. According to the anonymous sources, some PS5 games including Sackboy: A Big Adventure and Demon's Souls didn't sell many units in India compared to games like Spider-Man: Miles Morales. The report's sources also claim upcoming PS5 exclusives Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart and Returnal have only had pre-orders in the "double digits." They said this is due to the increased price of 5,000 Rupees for the games, whereas PS4 exclusives were generally 3,999 Rupees.
One of the sources said it doesn't help that both games are not established IP in India on top of the fact that gamers can get cheaper PS4 games instead of buying the new ones for the PS5. The report also added that most current third-party PS5 games are cheaper than Sony's first-party games. Despite all of this, Sony is still pushing forward with its online initiatives in India, but it remains to be seen how pushing services like PlayStation Now could have an impact on Sony's presence in that market.
Source: IGN India
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