Sony's rumored Spartacus program seems to be the Xbox Game Pass competitor that PlayStation fans are waiting for, but official information about this curious new project has been scarce. One of Spartacus' main features is supposed to be the ability to play classic titles from old PS consoles, and a few new game listings in the PlayStation 5 game store seem to suggest as much, too.Users have started reporting that the PlayStation 5 game store now has official listings for Dead or Alive 5 and a few other games, all of which have - so far - been exclusive to PlayStation 3. Since Bloomberg's Jason Schreier has reported on Spartacus subscriptions offering access to PS exclusives both modern and old, these new listings suggest that the project could be further along than originally suggested.First reported by Jordan Middler via Twitter, the appearance of certain PlayStation 3 Games on the PS5 store was initially limited to just Dead or Alive 5, but the list has since grown to include Bejeweled 3 and Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones HD. Since the PlayStation Store is a generalized marketplace with games for all online-enabled Sony consoles, this wouldn't be news-worthy on its own, but PS5 users normally don't see pricing information for games that they cannot purchase in the first place.
It goes without saying that this is not the official confirmation of a Sony Spartacus feature, and that there's every chance this is merely a visual bug in the PS Store. Still, the availability of PS3 games on the latest PlayStation consoles would be a massive boon for Sony's rumored Xbox Game Pass competitor, and it is supposed to be coming as part of Spartacus' final pricing tier.
In effect, the new PlayStation subscription service would functionally be a combination of PS Plus and PS Now, albeit with a tiered pricing structure. According to the latest information, access to PlayStation 3 games would be limited to the highest-priced tier, which would also include PS1 and PS2 titles. Since concrete details about the Spartacus program are slim, interested gamers will need to wait a bit longer to see if Sony has a genuinely compelling alternative to the Xbox Game Pass at hand.
Finally, it's worth mentioning that this is far from a definitive sign of what's to come with Spartacus. As mentioned earlier, this could be a bug, with the PS Store possibly pulling its price information from PS Now libraries where users can rent products individually. For the time being, PlayStation fans should wait and see what comes of this, and if it really is related to Spartacus in the first place.