What do you think of the upcoming revamp of the PlayStation Plus service?
PlayStation announced today their long awaited update to PlayStation Plus, designed to compete against Microsoft’s popular Game Pass.
What’s the new PlayStation Plus service looking like?
PlayStation have been rumored to lose ground with PlayStation Now, against the XBox Game Pass. This stems from multiple reasons, but the two main points being made have often been that Game Pass offers more recent games, and has better marketing: PS Now was always seen as a streaming service with only PlayStation device compatibility (even though download options have been added as soon as 2018, and PC streaming (through the PlayStation app) has been available for some time as well), while Game Pass is advertised more as a “download and play, PC compatible” service.
In an effort to refresh their PS Plus service, PlayStation are merging PS Now with PlayStation plus, and offering multiple tiers for the service. Long story short, the “basic” service (a.k.a. PS Plus Essential) is equivalent to the PS Plus we already now (and stays at the same price $60/year), “PS Plus Extra” is PS Plus combined with PlayStation Now, meaning you not only get 2 free games a month, but also have access to a catalog of 400+ games that can be either streamed or downloaded ($100/year), and finally, “PS Plus Premium” gives all of the above plus access to a collection of “retro” games from PS1, PS2, PS3, and PSP ($120/year).
I won’t go into details, you can find them on the official announcement.
What happens to existing PS Plus and PS Now subscriptions?
People on PS Plus will be automatically converted to PS Plus Essential subscription. Technically nothing changes for them.
PS Now users will be converted to PS Plus Premium at no extra cost, for the duration of their current subscriptions. This looks like a very nice boost for people using this service.
Opinion on the new PlayStation plus service
I think it’s great that Sony are merging PS Now into the more well known PS Plus service, as it might help people understand the value they’re getting a bit better. As a PS+ subscriber myself, I’m glad nothing changes for me for the time being (although, honestly, a bit disappointed that I’m not getting anything extra…)
I’m surprised that PlayStation aren’t doing any kind of promotional offer to ramp up the service. A free month of the premium tier for all PS Plus subscribers would have been nice. Or maybe a discount for people who join the service for the first time, or for people willing to upgrade. Maybe this will come later, but honestly this would have got me a bit more excited about this service update.
Could the tiered approach backfire on users of the “Essential” plan?
More importantly, as a consumer, I’m very worried about a “tiered” approach to such a service.
It seems obvious to me that Sony will try everything they can to make PS Plus Extra and PS Plus Premium look appealing to people who are already on PlayStation Plus “Essential”. And that could mean, reducing the perceived value of the basic tier, by providing less attractive free games in the monthly package. For example, what are the odds of ever getting Spider-Man, or Returnal, as one of the “Essential” free games, when those are the flagship games of the PS Plus Extra level? Those of you who have seen the ebook or music offerings on the “standard” Amazon Prime service might know what I’m talking about. The content on the basic service is very minimal, and to really get something out of it, you have to then subscribe to an additional service (in Amazon’s case, “Kindle Unlimited” or “Music Unlimited”). This leaves the aftertaste of the basic service being useless, and just a base fee for getting access to the next level, which offers the “real” value.
Is the price right?
There’s a serious question to be asked about the pricing of the services as well. Looking at PS Plus Extra as the better priced tier, once has to ask themselves if they’re getting $100 worth of value for one year of the service.
I personally tend to only buy games on sale, which means I’ll rarely spend more than $20 on a game. Call me cheap, but I’d say my average PS game costs me $15. (And much less on PC). So the question for someone like me is whether the PS Plus Extra level gives me 7 interesting games or more per year. Believe me or not, but playing 7 games a year for a grown up man is not actually easy. And if I’m perfectly honest, I don’t think PS Plus provides me enough value nowadays (I’d be better of buying a couple games a year at this point, as long as they’re games I really enjoy). But my kids also play the PS4/PS5, and with all of us combined, the Essential tier certainly provides good value currently, letting us try many different games throughout the year (it’s very rare for us to actually complete one…the only recent exception is probably VR Game Astro’s recue mission).
Assuming I’m ok paying $60 for the current Essential Tier, for me to jump to the Extra tier, I’d need to see $40 worth of games in the “Extra” catalog. For me, that means 3 really good games a year. And by “really good”, I mean games I’d have bought anyway. To be honest, I’d need to see the full catalog to make a decision at this point. But as I’m pondering this, I get back to my section above, about this tiered approach backfiring on “Essential” users: in order to keep the “Extras” catalog attractive, PlayStation will necessarily have to limit the amount of “really good stuff” they offer on the basic tier.
I’m not discussing the “Premium” tier that much, as you can see. I think that one specifically target hardcore PlayStation fans who have already made their decision. I’m not sure who the target is here to be honest, as I’m assuming people who really enjoy particular retro games already have their retro solution in place (whether through emulation or actually owning an old console). I’d be interested to see people’s opinion on that tier.
With all of the above being said, for now, it feels like the 3 tiers of the PlayStation Plus services are priced accordingly, and we’ll need to see if time proves me wrong. As long as we get a reasonable mix of indie and AAA in the Essential offering, I’ll be a satisfied PS Plus user.
Conclusion
As far as I’m concerned, I’ll happily stay as an “Essential” PS Plus user, but I won’t lie: I’m looking at the “Extra” tier and waiting to see if it could be good for me. I’m both hopeful and worried about the direction PS Plus could take in the years to come.
What are your hopes and concerns for PS Plus? Anybody interested in the “Premium” tier? Let me know in the comments!
I believe if the games are good it is worth the headache just to play them on the ps4 / ps5. Though i do wish they support the psvita. Definitely the Vita needs love.
– PS3 is still streaming only…. also not available in all countries.
– No news of PS Vita games, that we could play with trophies and everything else
– PS1, PS2, PSP games might be interesting, but if they only add a small percentage of that huge library, I don’t think I will pay for this service. I expect these games won’t have trophies either, and we don’t know the quality / resolution they will run at. Native PS1 / PSP resolution won’t look good on any modern TV.
PS3 / Vita with local emulation could have been the most interesting news, but looks like we can still wait for that, maybe with PS6.
I’m an avid retroplayer and I love this announcement. The reason ? I love to be able to use only one system for all my games. I hate it when I have to mess up with settings and stuff. Currently I have a modded PS3 that I use for PS1/PS2 emulation but I know it will be better with PS5 because quieter and with a better controller.
I’m also very very excited for timed trials. What was missing from playstation was a good refund policy, but if you can try a game before buying then it’s basically like Steam <2h refund.
So far I held up on my PS5 update but now I'm really wondering if I want to continue to follow that path. But I will still wait until it's implemented and what the game catalog will be.
That’s exactly my feeling as also a grown up….
I have the game pass on xbox (got it extremely cheap with the 1€ offer at launch) and to be fair, I think I have only done at most 3 games since then on it….
And you NEED to watch for the games to go out of the offer each time…. I won’t renew it when it’ll expire.
I prefer to buy my game and enjoy them when I have the time to do it.
And by playing games later (like sometimes, 3/5 years later), they cost far less and…. let’s also be clear… they usually are nearly “finished”/”bug free” and I don’t feel like being a beta tester 😉
For myself, i hoped that the PS5 will be, well, REALLY backward compatible and not like the ps4 hidden behind a service asking me to pay every month to use my already owned PS3/PSP/PSV games (even if PSVita doesn’t seems to be here)
I do have a PSTV with a CFW, probably like many folks here, so PSP, PSV and many PS1 titles already runs well
For PS3, I have RPCS3 (my ps3 slim died), and i’m even planning to get a new one as it’s not really optimal.
Considering the trend for Sony to provide live service games even where we don’t ask to (GT7 …), I don’t feel comfortable at the idéa to write a blank check to them and saying: “do whatever you want i’ll accept it”
While i’m disabled and have WAAAAAAAAY to much free time (way more that i ever wanted), i’m playing a lot of videogames, but like the author of the article, almost never day one, and NEVER at full price (40€ is an absolute maximum for the PS4 era)
The thing that concern me more is the fact that player on places where cloud cannot be provided, can play offline, and what about others?
ps++ max extra
1st
First
I think I’m gunna just stick to retroarch on the series x
I think it’s garbage they walled garden anything their fan/consumers have been requesting them to do.
A standard they set in place first then remove is their playbook.
It’s PC from here on, unless Nintendo makes another great console but that’s a gamble as well.
Physical copies if you own and like consoles. That’s the only way you will preserve and keep your copy on demand.
Buy PC games that are DRM free.
its trash.gamepass is in a whole nother league.
Improvement to what we had before and at the same overall price.
It’ll be nice to see more Classics from PS1/PS2/PSP. Would love to see some extra emulator features, such as 2 PSP instances on 1 platform to have local “split-screen” using adhoc emulation.
Not really impressed, PC streaming is only available in the top tier. Whereas before you could subscribe solely to ps now and play on pc you now have to pay for ps plus also.
I think if they had added a small selection of streaming titles to the essential tier. It would seem like something new.
As it is it just feels like being forced to pay more money!
Here in Brazil we will not have the plan that includes streaming so we will not be able to play PS3 games so we will have to choose to leave it as is or subscribe to PS PLUS EXTRA.
As for the BRL 339.90 I think it’s worth it, thanks to PlayStation for not making a direct conversion and adapting it to the reality of my country.
Well, I usually calculate a bit diffently than you do. If a game for 10 bucks gives me an hour or two of real fun, it’s a good deal. Compare it with watching a movie in theater or having a fun evening with friends. So if you buy a full price game for 50 or 60 bucks and it offers you 10, 20 or more hours of fun alone, with friends or with the family, then of course it’s worth it… I mean, ***?! So if you have a plus subscription anyways it’s not even worth thinking about 40 USD a YEAR extra. That’s like what 3.50 per month?? if there is only ONE game where you spend 10 minutes on per month and you enjoyed those 10 minutes, it’s worth it, no?
I have both PS Plus and PS Now so combining the 2 would be very nice. Now if Sony added the EA Pass to PS Extra or Premium would really be nice.
Why is Jim Ryan bent on destroying the Playstation? When the head was a Japanese, he knew what was product loyalty and focused on maintaining Playstation as a core gaming console. Now, Jim is just destroying the core feeling for which we buy a dedicated console. Streaming can be done on PC, everyone has it and it doesn’t require a very high end pc. Even Sony exclusives are being ported to other platforms, what’s the use of buying a Playstation now?
I like the idea but can’t help but feel this is another monopoloy move by sony to match Microsoft’s streaming service.
For PSP/PS2/PSX I have an android tablet 12″ screen with ps4 controller… so i’m not missing out there (with the option of mods and create your own cheat codes)
Ps3 games were pretty good and i’d like to see them streamed but i still have a ps3 with CFW.
Ps4 games i also have 3 consoles for and the ps5 is sitting happily on my TV stand.
Ps vita with SD2 vita 1tb card and i have literally every decent game on the device. ( and god knows how many homebrew games )
that being said, i’d imagine it’s good for a user that hasn’t got sony consoles and just want to experience the exclusives released over the years (Heavy Rain, Killzone, FFVII ect )
It’s ***. Microsoft are laughing their *** off about this