The new PlayStation Plus subscription service is Sony’s counterpart to Microsoft’s Game Pass. The latter keeps getting more impressive by the week. Alternatives for PS users, PlayStation+ and PS Now, have been pretty decent. However, the gaming community felt it fell short in a lot of features compared to Game Pass.
Fortunately, Sony has come up with a revamped PlayStation Plus service. Although devs announced it in a relatively underwhelming manner, they hope it will be at par with Microsoft’s service.
The new PlayStation Plus will have three different tiers of service, namely Essential, Extra, and Premium. All of these tiers will replace the existing PS Now service in June. Unfortunately for PC users, only the Premium tier will let them play PS games on their platform. Sadly, Premium also happens to be the service’s most costly tier.
At the moment, gamers can subscribe to PS Now without having to additionally subscribe to PS+. They will have to pay $9.99 monthly, $24.99 quarterly, or $59.99 annually. However, the new and ravamped PlayStation Plus’ Premium tier will cost $17.99 monthly, $49.99 quarterly, and $119.99 yearly in the US. This is a massive price hike for PC gamers. It would seem that accessing PS games on PC will be doubling in price.
This seems to be a retrograde step for Sony. In the recent years, they have provided more opportunities for PC users to have access to PS games. The aforementioned prices would be pretty decent for exclusive PlayStation players. However, the same could not be said for PC users. After all, the PC gaming world is an ecosystem that has an endless list of dirt-cheap games.
It is understandable that Sony wants to keep the biggest chunk of their business on their own consoles. Part of this approach is making their platform the most attractive choice for playing PS games. However, limiting the PC community to only the Premium tier, on top of doubling the price of streaming on PC, seem to make a statement. The PC side of the service has become even more of an afterthought than usual.
Are you subscribing to the revamped service? Let us know in the comments below.