1y ago

Sony raising PS Plus pricing by 33%

www.pushsquare.com PS Plus Essential, Extra, Premium Price Increases Announced by Sony

As much as $40 more

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Tier                          Original Pricing.       New Pricing
PS Plus Essential	£49.99 / $59.99	£59.99 / $79.99
PS Plus Extra	        £83.99 / $99.99	£99.99 / $134.99
PS Plus Premium	£99.99 / $119.99	£119.99 / $159.99

33+% is quite a hike, considering that Sony doesn't offer PS+ Day 1 Launches, unlike Xbox. I hope they start offering their games day one, else people will start to unsubscribe.

It's a bummer, since I like PS+ Extra a lot (don't get PS+ Premium, it's not worth it)

Also very scummy of them to hide their pricing update behind the Sept PS+ monthly games blogpost

93 comments

Save your money, buy a Steam Deck or a desktop PC, play games online with the internet service that you already pay a shit ton of money for, and don't look back. It's really stupid that we allowed game consoles to charge us to play online.
- Steam deck is a great way to get into PC gaming if you don't have a lot of money or a PC. It can run a lot of games. Enough that you won't get bored any time soon.
  
  I would say a pc would be cheaper if ur on a budget as u can easily get a bunch of used hardware and rig it together till you can afford something better for an upgrade
- Yeah, if you can, get a PC, they might cost more initially but they pay for themselves in the long run. No reason to own a console.
  I bet Steam machines would do better if they were released now.

I'm not a console owner, are PlayStation owners really giving Sony $60 a year to play online multiplayer? It shouldn't cost anything in the first place. If Valve or GoG or anyone else started trying to tell me I had to pay them extra to send certain packets through my router, I'd have a good laugh.
- I’m not a console owner, are PlayStation owners really giving Sony $60 a year to play online multiplayer?
  It all started with the Xbox, since people did not questioned it and received it with open arms the others (Sony and Nintendo) just copied it. It's just matter of time we end up paying on PC too
  
  PC gaming is actually a competitive market that would still give players options to escape that (Gog, steam, Epic, itch and humble dumble, hell even Microsoft store and company launchers), it is not guaranteed to never happen because cartels happen, but it is far more hard and improbable than consoles, which are locked-down computers with unbreakable monopolies installed in then, at the mercy of the feudal lord of choice. PS: not to mention, Piracy, emulators and Libre games on linux.
  
  Yo-ho-ho matey.
  
  Microsoft is seeing to that as fast as they can
  
  Microsoft actually tried that during the 360 era with their "Games for Windows Live" service. You had to pay Live "Gold" in order to play online for those games, the exact same subscription required for online gaming on Xbox.
  The whole service was so poorly done, so intrusive, and so un-PC, that it didn't stick with PC gamers.
  Nowadays, with quite a few PC gamers already paying for the Game Pass subscription and a rather streamlined experience for PC, I wonder if things would turn out differently somehow.
  
  It was a discussion. And XBox Live was a significantly better experience than PSN. A lot of people were happy to have the premium online experience on PS4 vs the barebones PS3 experience.
  To be clear, I had PS Plus on the PS3 when it was just unlocked (free-ish) games and extra discounts. And most of my favorite playstation multiplayer was on the PS3. So I was mostly indifferent to the change.
- It used to be charging you to send packets through servers that they (in this case, Sony) own, but now that may or may not be the predominant use case in this era of games as a service where the developer needs to run the game through their own servers anyway. The reason Valve, Epic, and CD Projekt don't charge you for it is because you're paying for it every time you buy a game through their stores, which also used to be a less prominent situation on consoles, but now well more than half of games are bought digitally on consoles as well. So PC has taken more and more market share while consoles continue upping the price of their mandatory subscription fees for online play, and one day they'll sit there scratching their heads, wondering where all of their customers went.
- While this is true, it does at least provide access to a large library of games 🤷‍♂️ im certainly not thrilled about the increase but when your primary game platform is ps5, what can you do
  
  Large library of games is factually incorrect, you just do not know the scale of games in existence. Far more titles in Steam, gog, itch io, and with emulation this all goes to the square power, the largest library of games is a PC.
  
  Sell the PS5.
- I never did. I only got a PS4 for single player exclusives back in the day. Refused to pay for online access and had no interest in paying a monthly fee for rentals when I already had a backlog. And had my PC for everything else.
- If it's free games (like Fortnite) there's no need to pay ps plus subscription
- I did for a long time, now its to expensive to subscribe. Not to mention AAA games being a $80 piece of bloated garbage.

It's a good thing we all got 33% pay raises... Right?

The higher upfront hardware costs of a decent PC become more worth it every day. Screw Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo.
- And it's capable of productivity with free tools like blender, visual studio code, and da vinci resolve. So that extra hardware can be used beyond just gaming.
  
  I view my pc as a hobbyist's tool, instead of solely a gaming device. It has helped me learn many things outside of gaming, all the information it can get me and all the things i can do on it are frankly overwhelming.
  Totally worth what I paid for this pc, 100%.
  
  And you can play all of your historical games, and emulate every console since the dawn of time.
- Let's not forget to mention the Steam Deck's low price for pretty great PC gaming. Even more so for the refurbished entry models which are nearly the same price as the last GPU I recommended to someone (secondhand 6700 XT). I've been surprised how good of an experience I've had with Baldur's Gate 3 on the Deck.

Well goodbye PS plus it was nice while it lasted. Jesus Christ why does every fucking service have to enshitify? Why goddamnit?!
- I know it's become a meme, but because capitalism. I'm surprised gamers more gamers aren't against it because it only ever makes our favorite hobby so much worse.
  
  I stopped being amazed when console gamers argued on behalf of a billion dollar corporation for why online multiplayer had to be paid.
- I've got premium till May next year, always buy on Black Friday sales, cancelled my renewal, I can't justify that price. Hopefully everyone cancels their renewal, they get the message and undo the damage.
  
  I'm probably switching from Premium to Essential. I might drop it completely. I really don't game online much.
- Yeah I'm not going to pay any more than what I already pay for PS+ just to help people on Elden Ring. I don't play any of the shit they give you on PS+ anyway so I'm out.

Does Sony really think they can charge more than fucking Game Pass???

Are they still going to auto renew this shit even though they massively increased the price? That should be illegal. I would have never seen the increase until after it was billed if not for this post.
Do you guys remember when prices used to go up like 3-5%? I guess corporations started taking notes from the fricken DMV.
- Considering their subscription competitor costs $204 a year while they were at $120/yr, I think it's pretty clear why they boosted the upper tiers so much. Even with this price increase, it's still $44 cheaper than Ultimate and imo a better overall value in terms of game quality.
  What's really trash is that they're increasing the price of the base PS+ membership, and by so much. It now costs $150 a year to play just Madden, CoD, or EA Soccer, on top of a minimum $400 console purchase. That's absurd. I would say this is a W for Xbox, but they already tried to increase the price of Gold and they'll definitely try again now that they know there's no escaping it.
  ...Other than buying a PC.
  
  Oh yeach paying for playing online games is such a bulshit. I never really complained about it online beacuse i was buying ps plus on ps3 when it only gave you games ( beacuse i do buy it only for games and i would never pay it to play online games) so it never really affected me but this is such a bs. Im suprised there wasnt a bigger outcry against it.
  
  Gold is going away and getting a value increase. It's becoming "Gamepass Core" it retains Online function, and gets 25 Gamepass Games.
  Microsoft only increased the price by like, 2 dollars. Not this nonsense.
  
  The base tier is entirely bullshit. You shouldn't need to pay them money to access the internet that you already pay another company for. The base tier shouldn't exist.
- I mean... Usually in this cases once they charge you you can still ask for a refund as long as it hasn't passed a lot of days but yeah I agree is shit.

If you guys ever wonder why a seemingly modern computer goes for half of what a normal PC costs, this is why. They'll milk you dry with subscriptions like this

Whelp, I was keeping the sub purely because the games they give you monthly and so my ex could still play online, but nvm. Gonna cancel because it's not worth the cost. The games they give out monthly are usually mid and the online services haven't improved since the PS3 days when it was free.
Still don't have a PS5, and definitely not getting one now. Fuck off, Sony.

Well, that's another reason to consider completely switching over to gaming on PC. The free games are nice, but the quality always varies month to month and I really have to wonder if it's worth it to stay subscribed.
- They’re not free.

considering that Sony doesn’t offer PS+ Day 1 Launches, unlike Xbox
They don't offer them as often as on Game Pass, but there are some day 1 launches on Extra.
As with most subscription models, the value proposition will probably decrease as we move forward (one only has to glance at streaming services to see what awaits us in the gaming space imo...). Bummer, but expected.
- I share your sentiment. I previously owned an Xbox 360 but had been in the Sony camp for the past decade. For a few months I had a gamepass subscription without an Xbox console and I'm currently a PS+ premium member. The fact that you get day 1 access to first-party titles from Microsoft AND they have a gamepass streaming app on Android and PC is huge. I may have to reconsider the value proposition of my Sony services.

By comparison Nintendo charges 24.99 a year (In Canada) Its a much simpler service but you also get access to some of their old catalogue online.
Or even cheaper just use Steam.

Yup just cancelled my subscription, once i followed the link to confirm from Playstation not heresy. And yeah what a way to announce it, douches.
I'm a long time Playstation fan, had every system.
sigh

Ah yes sell these consoles at discount in one month raise the subscription plans next month. Win-win

Jesus I'm so glad I haven't bought a console since the N64. Console players just get non-stop reamed.
- Well, to be fair the N64 didn't have any online capabilities, but I get your point.

Hahaha fuck. I could never go back to console.
- I keep forgetting that stuff ain't free

looks up from her PC Gaming Rig You guys are paying for online plah?

Yeah, i'm gonna axe my PS Plus account. It ain't worth it. PS5 has no games.

Thanks for the info. Canceled today.

This price hike is absurd - fortunately the only game I play online (Warframe) is implementing cross-save soon, so I'll be able to move away from Playstation and stop renewing Plus - 80 dollars for online pay and cloud saves is robbery, how greedy can you get?!
- Wait, console players still have to pay to play online? Wtf? How have people kept purchasing these things?
  
  A lot of people fear that you have to be a tech geek with deep pockets to play anything other than minesweeper.
  Not true but this fear sells Xboxes
  
  At first, we grumbled but did it because we knew that running the services had a cost. Then it got normalized. "Eh, it's the price of one game a year, and I get to play whatever online and get three 'free' games a month, so it's a good deal."
  Now, it's not a good deal anymore, at least for me. Hit the "Cancel" button on my sub not 5 minutes ago.
  I grew up on consoles, spent my teens on PC, and my adult life I've always kept both around, because I love games, regardless of where they are, but yeah. Most of my multiplayer was already on PC, this just solidifies my PS5 as a media/single player game appliance.
- I don't think you have to pay for plus for warframe. I used to play in PlayStation and I haven't had plus since I got 3 free months with my PlayStation
  
  Even better - I can just let it lapse then and still play using my preferred controller - thanks for letting me know!

I bought PS+ earlier this year for the first time ever and regret it even at its current price. It was an experiment but it failed for me.

There was a promo where all PlayStation Now subscription gets converted 1:1 with PS Plus Premium before Plus launched. Found some cheap Now gift cards online and stocked up until 2029. Suddenly that's feeling like a much better deal.

The columns were out of alignment for me, so I thought I'd display it as a table:
Tier Original Pricing New Pricing

PS Plus Essential £49.99 / $59.99 £59.99 / $79.99
PS Plus Extra £83.99 / $99.99 £99.99 / $134.99
PS Plus Premium £99.99 / $119.99 £119.99 / $159.99
- oh wait, I didn't realize that the table markdown works here.
  Thanks for displaying it as a table!

Tier	Original Pricing	New Pricing
PS Plus Essential	£49.99 / $59.99	£59.99 / $79.99
PS Plus Extra	£83.99 / $99.99	£99.99 / $134.99
PS Plus Premium	£99.99 / $119.99	£119.99 / $159.99

Ah yes, another very "for the players"-move indeed

And thus I canceled my premium plan. I barely play online as it is, if I want I’ll just go to steam.
Absolute bullshit of a price gouge

I used to own both a Series X, PS5 and have my gaming PC (all in the same room - desktop currently has an i5 13500, RTX 3090 24GB, 4TB of NVME storage & 128GB ram)
Got myself a 5m hdmi lead capable of driving my 4k/120 TV and just ended up using my pc for everything now.
I just switch sources between my monitor and tv when I want to game on the couch. Any mouse/keyboard input needed, I do it on the Unified remote app on my phone and fire up Steam big picture on the tv.
Sold the PS5 and XBOX and ditched two more subscriptions hitting me every month.
No regrets so far.
- I bought a steam link forever ago and ran an Ethernet cable from my router to it. Works like a charm.

Nintendo will be next to raise prices for their peer 2 peer. Lol

I've been paying for premium for the last year (monthly, not so bright here) and I haven't used any of the offerings of streaming or demos. I'm def lowering my sub to extra (I def play from the catalog) but wondering if I should just pay for the year subscription now or wait for any discounts that may happen.
I think I read we have til Sept 6 to pay for current prices, so I figured I'd just get the year today. Any thoughts?

I buy the subscriptions for ps+ and nso during black friday. There is usually a sale going on then. Wish i could have stacked up some more.
- Yeah, but recently PS+ subscriptions only get a around 20% discount on Black Friday, and Sony is hiking the price up by now than 30, so it's more than likely that the discounted price is still going to be higher than the full price now...

It's a move to test water then, since most people that are long term subscriber usually stack up during sales. I think they are testing how well it might work with their new offers and banking on people forgot to stop renew.
It really sucks cause essential pretty much no longer justified for their pricing at this point. Guess I have to try setup some sort of back up routine for my old save files on the PS cloud before I cancel my subscription.

Damn, I expect not getting too ripped out in México...

Question: If I were to buy a PS Plus Essential subscription code for 12 months, how would I be changing that to premium? Would I be charged after putting my code in? Do I now have two different dates on when Premium ends and when essential ends?
- If you upgrade from essential to premium then you only pay the price difference for the time left on your essential. So only one end date.

93 comments