Sony Removes Games From PS Plus — Even Its Own Games — to 'Keep the Proposition Interesting and Help People Find New Games,' Says PlayStation Exec

Video game subscription services can be great for folks who want to try loads of different games without paying full price for each one, but it stinks when a game you've been looking forward to vanishes from the service entirely. So why do companies like PlayStation and Xbox routinely remove games from services like PlayStation Plus and Xbox Game Pass, especially when it's their own, first-party games? Recently, one Sony executive provided... something of an answer, at least from the PlayStation perspective.

In a Game File interview with Nick Maguire, VP of global services at PlayStation, he was asked about the fact that PlayStation regularly delists games from the service. Just this past May, it took down over 20 games. Some of these removals make sense, such as GTA 5 — it's likely Sony's deals with third-parties have expiration dates. But it's a little more surprising to see older Sony first-party games removed, such as Infamous: Second Son, Resistance: Fall of Man, and Resistance 2.

“We've got 80 collections of games across the catalog,” Maguire responded. “So we want to keep it fresh and bring in new games. Sometimes that means taking a few games out at the same time to keep the proposition interesting and help people find new games as well.”

In the same interview, Maguire discussed PlayStation Plus' ongoing success, saying that "engagement... has never been higher." Maguire declined to speak explicitly about how pricing impacted that (subscription prices went up in 2023) and he did not offer subscriber numbers, but he did explain some of the logic behind which games Sony chooses to add. For instance, the company tries to find "a moment to grow a franchise," such as by releasing a game on the service just before its sequel launches. He also says that Sony tries to add roughly one new "classic" game per month, though they may not always meet that goal due to emulation taking time.

What it won't be doing anytime soon is what Xbox is doing, which is add its own first-party games to the service the day they come out. “We've sort of stayed true to our strategy across the board, where we're not looking to put games in day and date,” Maguire said.

Sony just announced the new games coming in July to PS Plus, which include Diablo 4, SNK’s King of Fighters 15, and Don't Nod’s Jusant.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.