The Higher The Prices, The Better The Benefits
Sony has finally unveiled plans to change PlayStation Plus into a 3 tiered subscription service. These 3 tiers will vary from price point as well as benefits that come with them.
At launch, Sony plans on including several highly acclaimed and fan-favorite first-party titles with the subscription service such as God of War, Marvel’s Spider-Man, Death Stranding, Returnal, and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales.
The new system comes with three tiers of PlayStation Plus:
- PlayStation Plus Essential: This first tier is essentially the same old PlayStation Plus, same price, and same benefits. For $9.99 a month or $59.99 a year. Players will get access to online multiplayer, two monthly free games, and cloud storage for save files.
- PlayStation Plus Extra: This tier is priced at $14.99 a month or 99.99. It includes all Essential benefits, plus free access to up to 400 games from the PS4 and PS5 consoles.
- PlayStation Plus Premium: This tier is priced at $17.99 a month or $119.99 a year. It includes all the Essential and Extra benefits. On top of that, it also includes an extra streamable 340 games from the PS3, PS2, and PSP consoles. The tier will also offer time-limited game trials.
Sony was long rumored to have plans to combat its strong competitor’s subscription service, Xbox Game Pass, with their own “Project Spartacus”. It is worth noting, even though this definitely adds more value and flexibility to PlayStation’s subscription models, PlayStation is still holding its ground and will not be releasing its first-party titles on any of the tiers on day one.
“We feel if we were to do that with the games that we make at PlayStation Studios, that virtuous cycle will be broken. The level of investment that we need to make in our studios would not be possible, and we think the knock-on effect on the quality of the games that we make would not be something that gamers want,” says PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan in an interview with Gamesindustry.biz
Sony plans on releasing this new tiered system of PlayStation Plus in Asia this June of 2022. This will be followed by a release in North America, Europe, and the rest of the world soon after.