Back on December 21st 2021, Jason Schreier reported on Project Spartacus and shared details:
• Available on PS4 and PS5, expected this Spring
• Will merge PS+ and Now
• Tier 1: Include existing PlayStation Plus benefits.
• Tier 2: Offer a large catalog of PlayStation 4 and, eventually, PlayStation 5 games.
• Tier 3: Offer extended demos, game streaming and a library of classic PS1, PS2, PS3 and PSP games.
• Sony is also investing more heavily into cloud gaming.
• No Plans for Day and Date Releases.
Skip to January 31st 2022, NateTheHate shares new details on this project amongst other stuff:
• PS Spartacus will merge PS Now into PS Plus. Compared to NSO, but good instead of comparisons to Gamepass.
• No putting in discs to play native off of there.
• 100 PS1 titles offered at launch, PS2 and PSP a little later in 2022 and will be downloadable. PS3 will be game streaming.
• Restricted to the current PS Now 19 countries with planned EXPANSION to other COUNTRIES shortly after launch.
• PS2 and PSP coming later to ensure emulation is at a high quality not like NSO with no input lag and issues.
• No drip-feed games and wants consumers to have legacy software. Although licencing issues will play apart on games coming to the service.
• Standalone purchases of the legacy software of games will be available. (unconfirmed and membership requirement to purchase in unknown).
• Spartacus will not add Day 1 big releases but will add indie third-party games Day 1 on the service.
Jump to February 24th 2022, Jeff Grubb shares exactly what each tier will offer:
• “It’s probably getting pretty close to this actually launching, something’s probably going to happen by the end of this month and I don’t think that necessarily means publicly, I think in terms of the internal milestone of where the service needs to be,”
• Will offer 3 tiers (Essential, Extra, Premium – possibly placeholders)
• Pricing is $10 Essential, $13 Extra, $16 Premium (monthly pricing, unsure on annual – possibly placeholders)
Here’s what each tier is supposedly offering:
• Premium – full game trials for big new games like EA Play, “classic games”, cloud streaming, new games monthly
• Extra – “downloadable game catalog” “250, 300 games, something like that.”
• Essential – PS+ as we know it today
• Tier 3 is the only tier to have cloud streaming.
• Grubb implies that all PlayStation first-party titles could offer these trials are part of the premium tier.
And now we’re brought to March 25th 2022, where we’re told Project Spartacus is imminent from Jason Schreier:
• Project Spartacus to be revealed as early as next week.
• It will debut with a “splashy lineup of hit games”
• Combines PS Now and PS+ with multiple tiers
• Most expensive tier gives access to demos and ability to stream games. This is everything we’ve reported and heard on Project Spartacus, spanning over 4 months, with strangely one rumor dropping each month.