Poll: Are You Happy with Your PS Plus Extra, Premium Games for January 2024?

Meh month for me on Extra. Own anything that would take my fancy, the rest I can't see me putting any time into, too many games I have my eye on coming up.

10 games in a month on Extra, plus the 3 from essential, and you are trying to say its value is diminishing?

How much do you want for less than £10 (I got it for like £6 a month)?

@PsBoxSwitchOwner Context: "That said, we're starting to think Extra's biggest problem is its potential lack of hardcore appeal. If you play a lot of games (like we do!), then it could be argued that the tier's value is steadily diminishing."

Not trying to say anything, just suggesting for the sake of discussion.

I just want to poke my head in here and say that Shadow Tactics is a really good game and worth trying if you like stealth games. Unfortunately the developer, Mimimi is no longer in existence, but they leave us with a fun little legacy.

@ShogunRok that's definitely stating something. As soon as you think something and then say it out loud publicly then it's classed as saying something. Extra has been a solid tier since it launched and it offers a lot for your money. Of course I'd like it to be cheaper but it's not too bad considering a new AAA game can be £70 upwards. For me the premium tier is shocking as I'm not interested in streaming old games but I can understand people want this and that's where the hard-core gamer is going to be found and that's where you should be pondering if the service is diminishing in some capacity. I'm really happy with my extra sub and there is always something to tide me over whilst waiting for the big new releases I'm interested in. I'm sure you didn't intend your comment to be taken out of context but it kind of was.

Are they actually planning on bringing ps2 games to premium? Or am i misremembering

My problem is that games that do come to extra are ones I’ve already purchased months or years prior. So it’s redundant to me, and premium still has no value at all. I’m going all the way down to essential and not looking back when my sub lapses in May. I just don’t see the value, but kudos to those that are enjoying it.

I don't think they're bad games, I'm just not particularly interested in any of them. I have RE2. I'm interested in Tina but also just feeling pretty over Borderlands as a series.

Moved to Essential after a horrible year, seriously thinking into investing in a powerful PC rather than dump money into Sony again.

@Danloaded memoryholed buddy, ps2 games are probably never coming on the platform, by now it should have had hundreds, like you literally don't have even Sony games like Gran Turismo, imagine the level of commitment Sony has for this stuff.

I have cancelled my renewal and my sub runs out in May.

Apart from my one regular multiplayer game (which unfortunately I need at least essential to play online) I haven't played anything else since last September and only 3 games in the last year, where as before I got to trophy level 390 in 5 years. Sony has made other platforms more appealing so I've made the switch.

@Illyrian PC has so many more benefits, and remember you don't need PS+ to play Sony 1st party games, unlike on PS5. Sony now treat their console players as 2nd class citizens.

Only downside is it's all digital and you need to tinker around sometimes.

I’m only sorta looking forward to Rally Cross, but that’s only because I believe I bought the PS1 Classic on PS3, and thus would get this new port for free (as long as it’s not behind the Premium paywall like some are, at least for a period of time).

I doubt I’ll play much of it. I never played the game during the actual PS1 generation, and I don’t remember playing much of it on PS3. If I’m gonna play a PS1 rally game, it’ll be V-Rally 2, or one of the Colin McRae games.

"At least from our perspective, Extra continues to bring a lot of variety to the PS Plus table.. "

"That said, we're starting to think Extra's biggest problem is its potential lack of hardcore appeal. If you play a lot of games (like we do!), then it could be argued that the tier's value is steadily diminishing"

OK, let's have a discussio as I'm confused by what you said. What does 'hardcore appeal' mean? Are you saying that if Extra is lacking adding enough high-profile titles every month it could put-off 'hardcore' gamers? What does that mean? And is Extra meant to have hardcore appeal in the first place? I would think if a tier is meant to be for the hardcore, it's Premium.

Extra has 2 'excellent titles', in your words, added this month. Do they not meet the standard for 'hardcore appeal' despite being excellent?

Extra sees a lot of games added each month. If you play ' a lot of games' how are you seeing Extra value as 'diminishing'.

I've got Premium and I think Extra is where the real value is in comparison.

Still no regrets about ceasing this subscription after ten years. With games coming and going from these services I prefer to actually own games and choose when I play them.

@Danloaded They claim to have already done it, and they are technically telling the truth. It’s just that the only PS2 games included with Premium are the ones they already ported to PS4 last generation. No new ones have been released or even announced.

So far the only newly emulated games have been PS1 or PSP titles. Unless they have a big announcement at the next State of Play or Showcase, it’s unlikely that they’ll ever make new PS2 ports. They seem to be committed to making PS+ Premium a complete waste of money for most people.

@TrickyDicky99 oh yeah you can literally buy once exclusive Playstation games on Steam now hahaha, I agree they treat us like *****, which is gonna lower their profit margin and instead of improving they are gonna make the platform worse than it is to counterbalance the customer number losses.

@riceNpea I pretty much just said the same thing...or did I suggest it?

@Illyrian had a funny feeling. Ive been wishing for The Getaway see lol only get the psp one most likely at this point

@riceNpea I think the “hardcore gamers” they’re referring to are people that have been playing and buying games at least since the PS4 generation — and before PS+ Extra existed — and therefore would already own or have played most of the games offered on the service.

It’s only a good value to newcomers to the PlayStation ecosystem, or people that only buy a few games a year (due to budget or interest).

@Danloaded you'd have better luck with an emulator at this point heh

I just bought RE2 which is a little bit of a bummer. RE4/8 and VR kind of spoiled my RE experience lately though.

I want Cho Aniki for PS1 released on the PlayStation Store as an import title like they did for PS3.

@NathanUC
Exactly the same situation regarding RE. VR has spoiled me, can’t get motivated to play it in a flat window now.

Regarding the comments on the service generally. I guess I’m not a hardcore gamer as it’s fine for me. Not even sure what they mean by hardcore gamer. Are they just saying games need to come on release day because otherwise the hardcore would already own them and this won’t be of interest?

Nah they're sh*te apart from resi 2 which everyone that wants will have. Can't complain though, still playing evil west and will probably follow up with requiem

@Deljo evil west is such a nice surprise. I like it a lot more than I thought I would

I just upgraded to extra last night because it had so many games I’ve been wanting to play but never had the time, and some
games are tough to find on a sale. Buying all of them separately would cost a good amount compared to the sub. Ghost wire Tokyo, FF7 Remake on ps5, Humanity (vr2), dmc5, returnal, GTA5 (been putting it off too long), judgment, lost judgment, NieR replicant, and Gotham knights are just some of the games I’ll be looking to complete this year from extra. Not a bad group of games for the price. I own RE2 as well, so this month is kinda meh, but overall happy with the value Extra has.

Could be better, still salvageable.

@Impossibilium if that's the definition of hardcore, it describes the majority of Playstation gamers, which is hardly the traditional meaning of hardcore as a subset of anything.

And I don't think they mean harcore in terms of Sony, but hardcore as in they spend a lot of time gaming, far more than average.

But you could be right because he doesn't make himslef clear. 'Hardcore appeal' is ambiguous the way he's stated it and the observation is confusingly made.

@Northern_munkey yes you did 👍

It's a pretty scummy move that they keep putting games like the street fighter collection, the Dooms and modern remasters of old games in the premium tier. Yeah they are OLD games but recent modern console releases of them. This should be the place reserved for something like the PS1 ports of games like Street Fighter Ex, or Rival Schools. Also I did drop my tier from Premium to extra as it's just terrible imo (and I accidentally subbed to it when I first got my PS5 last November lol)

I was wanting things like the Vigilante 8 games, fear effect, Tomb Raider, Dino Crisis, ISS and ISS Pro, Pandemonium, Spider, Rayman, Croc and loads more of their own first party stuff. Awful selection at the moment.

I'm quite happy with the additions, I've already completed Tiny Tina Wonderlands but now I can get it back and get the DLC. Surviving the Aftermath and Shadow Tactics have also been on my radar for a while so I'm pleased with those getting added. Plus Evil West and Nobody Saves the World form the essential additions so I'd say this month has definitely been £11 well spent.

The problem is that, even though the subscription service has a lot of games and I for one play most of the offerings, it lacks appeal for not the hardcore crowd but the casual crowd. You know, the ones that want their Call of Duty, Their FIFAs, their first party titles. Solely from this alone one could see Gamepass as the killer deal, since they offer pretty much every first party game free day one...but as someone who actually likes a bit of variety, I often find that extra typically winds up winning out. I guess what I'm trying to say in a long winded way is that Gamepass does a better job appealing to the casual gamer while Extra/Premium are more geared to the hardcore gamer that knows games beyond the big AAA releases. The problem here becomes, which audience is it worth aiming for more? Personally the best answer for me has been to purchase both platforms and both subscription, having the best of both worlds but that likely isn't realistic for everyone.

A decent selection I guess. Just not for me. I'm not renewing my Premium subscription, that's for sure.

@Vriess Yeah Premium has been very disappointing for me, I hardly play anything on it that I couldn't get with Plus Extra. I think Ape Escape is the only PS1 game I really like to play out of the bunch, and that is a game I could just buy if I wanted. I guess their selection of JRPG's isn't bad if that's your thing, but it's not really my thing.

I'm just looking forward to buying and replaying SW E1 after all these years.

Seeing as it’s one of their own games, I hope they’ve added trophies to Rally Cross. I loved that game on the PlayStation.

After having ps now for years and then extra, I let my Extra expire and downgraded to essential. And this is not to say that the service is not worth it, I think I just have already bought too many games on the ps (seeing that I keep my gamepass ultimate sub, having started owning xb consoles way way way later than ps ones)

After a year PS Plus Premium subscription I realize that I haven't really played any of these games on extra except the ones I already purchased. I agree with what's said, its fine if ur newcomer otherwise u prob already own FF7 and RE2

Legend of anf Secret Of Mana are the only remotely interesting titles here. £120 a year we should be getting better titles. Game Pass can do it so why not PSPlus?

Phenomenal value, 27p a day and that's full price is blatant robbery on the customers part, nothing out there gets close to the value of ps plus extra, anyone complaining needs a perspective check

Essentials still the better tier overall imho.
36 games for 80€ every year (or less when on sale) and that doesn't have an expire date.
Extra is good if you have the time to a play a good amount of games from the catalogue, but it is very hard if you have a full time job, university, etc.
Essentials is a very good "companion" when you don't know what to play or you want something else to play aside the games you bought

@TrickyDicky99 absolutely. Second class citizens who get the games years before first class citizens because screw logic.

@VidaJ Because we don't know if Gamepass is even profitable. Only that MS has money to burn to force others out of the console race.

@naruball The multiplayer games will be day one on PC, with no need to pay for PSN online play

@riceNpea I think hardcore is the people like us who visit the site. All my friends and family who play PlayStation I would not call hardcore. They either play 1st party games with F2P mixed in or just F2P mostly. Most of the teens I know who game are the same. I’d say 1 in 7 are hardcore. So the tiers would be a great value for them, but not us. Anecdotally look at the top ten selling games every month and you’ll see anything but hardcore.

@TrickyDicky99 so cherry picking. Nice. Also, by multiplayer games, you mean games like the next Gran Turismo?

@themightyant I see. Then for me the hardcore player is going to be someone very much in the minority of PlayStation owner so the games Extra provides is good value.

The issue for me is not the Extra tier but the Premier tier. This tier is where I would say most of the hardcore fanbase would chose to subscribe to, as you expect. It's Sony's top tier so they should expect the most invested gamers to be attracted to it, and it's this tier that I think Push Square should point the finger at in regards of being lacklustre. I'd agree with that. Extra is good value as a middle tier.

@VidaJ It's pretty simple, Microsoft have far deeper pockets than Sony do.

@naruball The next Gran Turismo is years off, I'm still waiting for a current-gen GT game.

And who knows, but I don't think GT8 will be on PC because it doesn't keep a level playing field between console and PC players, but all their live service games will be day one on PC

@themightyant I agree with @riceNpea that the premium tier is where I'd expect the majority of hard-core gamers to be found. I'm not saying that hard-core gamers don't exist in the other tiers but for me the premium tier is probably going to be the one that's most attractive. My reasoning for this way of thinking is that the premium tier is pretty dire for how much it costs to subscribe to so you have to be pretty hard-core to find any value in there.

For me Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun

@TrickyDicky99 guess we'll see when/if it happens. What we do know is that currently, all the PS AAA exclusives are not available on PC for several years.

@naruball Several years?

I think you mean roughly 2 years as with Returnal, Ratchet and Horizon, and I think Jim said he thinks a 1 year gap is what they are thinking

@TrickyDicky99 You don't need PS+ to play Sonys first party games. I think you're referring to Herman Hulst saying live service games will be day and date release with PC which hasn't happened yet and Helldivers 2 by Arrowhead Games Studio are independent and not owned by Sony as far as I know and I could be wrong, but they are published by them.

Also there's some confusion between a game with multiplayer and live service which is multiplayer only, of all the games to be released in 2024 I'm not even sure how many are live service.

@SonOfClement Well Helldivers is technically 2nd party, it's most other people calling it 1st party.

But Concord and Fairgame$ are 1st party and they will requite PS+ unless they are free-to-play

If the best game on the list it's a 5 years old game most people interested in it already have... Yeah, not a good month.

@TrickyDicky99 Those are games from studios that were acquired specifically to make live service games. When PlayStation gamers say first party they mean Sucker Punch, Naughty Dog, Insomniac, Guerrilla games, Polythony Digital, Santa Monica etc. You know the heavy hitters not being day and date.

@SonOfClement When people say 1st party they mean studios owned by Sony, which includes all their acquisitions over the last few years.

Also if Factions 2 wasn't cancelled by Naughty Dog then it too would of been on PC with free access to PSN. If people think this is acceptable then fine, I'm not telling others what to do, but for the people who don't care I hope they allow crossplay to be disabled or it's going to end up being a right mess.

This is becoming suspiciously like the 'scam' book clubs of ye olden days fogies like me remember. Pay a fee each month (that's almost impossible to cancel) and pick a free book from shortlist you'll never bother to read. Death to this modern subscription model that's what I say it's MONEY FOR LIFE.

I have never understood the logic of putting any remastered games in the premium tier with the small handful of ps3 and ps1 games that are there. I thought that the premium tier would include more games that were not already available on the ps3 like more ps1 games or any ps2 games, but only a few new ps1 titles have been added. A few vita and psp titles are also appearing but not many and the good games are the ps2 titles which are not appearing.

So where is all the PS1/2 games coming to streaming collection ??? The list is poor and yet they put it behind a pay wall least I can play my old PS2 wonders like SSX Tricky and Underground 2 on my PS2 I really am thinking of dropping down to mid tier as I don't really stream games on the PS5

The extras aren't for me, but I think it's a good offering nonetheless. Resi 2 in particular is one of the best in its genre, and there's plenty of variety in the rest.

RE2 says it is premium for me. Can't get it.