‘Sony is going to make demos for some games on Playstation Plus Premium’

Sony will develop time-limited demos for some of the new games it offers on Playstation Plus Premium. That writes the editor-in-chief of Kotaku after it became known that Sony will require these demos for some games on Playstation Plus Premium.

Earlier this week came to light that developers who develop new games with a ‘wholesale’ cost above 33 euros per title will be obliged by Sony to provide time-limited demos. The demos will be used in the upcoming Playstation Plus Premium subscription.

Kotaku editor-in-chief Ethan Gach now writes on Twitter that Sony will develop these time-limited demos themselves. This should save extra work, but the measure brings according to Gach also concerns for game developers. After all, they fear that Sony will want to take part of the profit of a game. The company has not yet officially responded to news of either the development or the time-limited demos.

The previous reports indicate that the time-limited demos must be at least two hours long. Game developers can submit the trials to Sony up to three months after a game’s release. The company will then use them for its PlayStation Plus Premium subscription plan where the demos will be available to download for at least 12 months. The measure is reportedly not retroactive. This means that already released games do not have to be provided with a similar time-limited demo. The measure also does not apply to existing or upcoming PlayStation VR games. Developers can also submit custom demos instead of the time-limited versions. Sony will then check them piece by piece and allow them to access the platform.

In late March, Sony announced that it was launching new PlayStation Plus subscription plans called PlayStation Plus Essential, Extra, and Premium. PlayStation Plus Essential will cost 8.99 and replaces the current Playstation Plus subscription. Players will still receive two free games per month, cloud storage for save games and online multiplayer. PlayStation Plus Extra costs 13.99 euros per month and users can download additional games from a catalog of 400 PS4 and PS5 games. Premium will cost 16.99 euros. This will also allow players to stream 340 games for the PlayStation 3. In addition, a ‘catalogue of beloved classics’ will be available for both streaming and downloads of games for the original PlayStation, PS2 and PSP. It is also possible to play trial versions to see if a game meets the expectations of players. The existing PlayStation Now package will disappear. The new subscription formulas will come to Europe on June 22.