For a while after Netflix redefined how we watch movies and TV shows, it seemed like gaming was immune to the entertainment industry's overt shift to streaming. There was the used game market to worry about, not to mention the rental market and the technical limitations of ensuring people couldnt play downloaded games once their subscriptions ran out. Plus, while movies have theatrical runs that help them recoup some money before going to streaming, games have always been direct-to-consumer releases. How do you ensure big budget releases are profitable if people are playing them through a blanket streaming subscription rather than buying them for full price?

Then Xbox Game Pass happened. With the rise of digital game purchases overall, brick-and-mortar rental and used games stores also arent as prevalent as they used to be, leaving a perfect market opening for Microsoft to swoop in and occupy. Starting off famously cheap, the service quickly gained popularity as the first real Netflix for games, enough so that other companies felt obligated to compete.

The biggest of these competitors, predictably, is Sony, which quickly amped up its existing PlayStation Plus program to become another Netflix-style subscription service in the vein of Game Pass. Essentially, Microsoft and Sony add games to their services every month, you stream or download them (depending on the game and your subscription tier), and you lose access to them once your subscription runs out or the games are removed from the service. If you subscribe again, you can pick up your save where you left off, and you can even play downloaded games offline, assuming your system occasionally checks into the internet to ensure you still have an active subscription.

And yet, theres still the question of profitability. The companies take different approaches when it comes to which of their big-budget titles get added to their services and when (although they each try to make up for any content gaps in unique ways). Theres definitely still some hesitance to the gaming subscription model amongst publishers, with some more willing than others to sacrifice direct sales to pack value into their subscription plans. The question is, then: Does Game Pass still offer the unmatched value it once did, or has Sony usurped its throne?