It's been roughly a year since Sony gave its gaming subscription service, PS Plus, a major overhaul. Introducing two additional tiers on top of what was already there, it now resembles something much closer to Xbox's Game Pass. PS Plus Extra gives you access to a frankly absurd number of games across PS5 and PS4, while PS Plus Premium also throws in cloud streaming and access to a growing selection of retro titles. All told, it's never been better value to be a member, and it sounds like more people are opting for the most expensive option than you'd expect.
In a chat with GamesIndustry.biz, PlayStation's Nick Maguire speaks about the renewed service, reiterating the platform holder's strategy and the ever-increasing value of each subscription tier. One interesting comment made during the interview relates to the number of members currently occupying PS Plus Premium versus Extra.
"I was personally surprised that Premium has ended up being a bigger share of the base than Extra," Maguire says. "We all thought that Extra would be where the majority of people went to first, but actually Premium has been more popular and bigger," he elaborates, saying it's a "pleasant surprise".
It certainly is a bit surprising; generally, sentiment online is that Premium isn't quite worth the additional cost, whereas Extra represents incredible bang for your buck. According to PS Plus' head honcho, though, it seems the top tier is largely more popular overall.
We suppose that sort of lines up with how the service has been performing. Last year, PS Plus grew in terms of revenue, but the number of subscribers actually decreased. Maguire says that, this year, the service has "very much returned to growth".
Which tier of PS Plus are you subscribed to? Tell us in the comments section below.
Comments 42
I'm surprised at that since I hear most people say it's not worth being with Premium.
That's surely because it was peanuts to upgrade at the start, once the proper yearly pricing kicks in...
I'm only on Premium because I could upgrade the rest of my Extra subscription for £5. I'm more than likely not going to renew at Premium once my subscription runs out.
I wonder for how long. Many people got Premium when the service began or got it as a continuation of PS Now, so the question is whether they'll renew when that period's over.
And sure, of course it'd be a "pleasant surprise" to offer a garbage tier with garbage updates as the most expensive option on your service and have it be the most popular option. It's almost free money.
It's only $20 more for an entire year. I never understood the hate premium gets. Also easy for me since I was already subbed to PS Now, so it just carried me over with the same price
Like others have said, I highly doubt that will last. It is indeed surprising at first, but there's almost no way it lasts as Sony has pretty much failed to make it worthwhile. Extra is a great service though, so I do expect people to gravitate towards that once their initial subscriptions expire.
@Anke Yup,I stacked mine as well upto 2030. Worth it.
Not really a surprise it's like only 20 dollars more a year. Not a bad price to upgrade.
For just over £1 a month Premium is well worth it imo - there a lot of games in the premium section. Killzone liberation this month is excellent.
It also means if I'm not sure on if a game is worth the download time, I can try it streaming and get an idea if its worth downloading. I will always have premium.
Premium just doesn't seem worth it. I know that it's not that much more than Extra, but what am I really getting for it? Despite Sony trying really hard to convince everyone otherwise the streaming just doesn't work that well. Not as well as Xbox Cloud, GeForce Now, or Stadia (RIP), and the catalog of "classics" is so thin. The only way I would consider Premium is as a one-month upgrade here or there to play any particular games that are on it.
I think this two-tier setup is just devaluing the whole offering and giving people confusion and room for displeasure. They should just consolidate all of it in two tiers, I think. As in PS Plus Base and PS Plus Premium.
Maybe it's different for newer players who haven't had the chance to play all the classics games over and over both on the original systems and as downloadables on the PS3/Vita.
@Titntin I had been considering dropping Premium, but they always add one retro game each month that I want to play 🤷
I was fully planning on just getting Essentials in November when my sub ends, but the other day I grabbed another year of Premium while it was on sale.
Just waiting for them to add Vagrant Story now. They've added almost every other game I wanted.
@Shepherd_Tallon Glad you still on board mate - hopefully Vagrant Story soon
They are tricking you with such statements to change to the Premium tier, which is worthless. I’m fine with my Extra.
For the extra £2 or whatever it is it’s a no brainer
I had five years of PS+ and one year of PS Now at the time the service was revamped. That turned into five years of PS+ Premium. When it's time for me to renew, I'll likely land on Extra because I don't use the streaming and have minimal interest in classic titles - I can't even keep up with all the new games I want to play.
@Snake_V5 I think Premium gets a slightly unfair rep. It's only £16 a year more. For that you get 450 more games that aren't on Extra, game streaming, Demos etc.
The trouble is it looks bad every month when you compare the NEW games added to Extra. But they are different services. Extra is a fast changing library, Premium is more static, but judged on it's own merits I think Premium is good value at £16 a year. But some people seem to be expecting the Earth for that £16.
Of course if you aren't going to use it then of course it's not worth it. It's not for everyone.
Had premium for a while but only so that I could stream God of War 1 and 2 before Ragnarok released.
I then let it expire before joining back into Extra on the discount last week. Premium has absolutely nothing else to offer me....unless Future Cop LAPD shows up 🤩
I got Premium at the moment because i had stacked PS Now till March next year. If Premium stays like how it is, then ill get Extra next year. Streaming PS3 games im not interested in and there arent enough PS1/PSP/PS2 classics to keep me subbed to Premium.
I'm on Premium
If I was paying on a monthly basis I probably wouldn't be but I bought an annual subscription on Black Friday and there was hardly any difference between the price of Premium and Extra so it seemed a bit brainer
I have Premium until 2031, but only because I grabbed a load of PS Now to gain from the conversion to Premium when it started.
If I hadn't used that loophole then would have gone for Extra.
That's cos they don't let you switch down easily and I reckon they have a lot of subs where people trusted Sony to deliver but the first year has been rubbish for Premium. I want to go down to Extra but have to wait for my current sub to end.
Extra has been pretty good tho even without a lot of day one releases. I hope they keep adding some special indies as day one and they really need to do better with Premium but I worry that looking at the numbers Sony will think they don't have to.
@Jayslow it's mainly because the classics library sucks and it's mostly PS Now streaming stuff or timed game demos, which honestly should be available to anyone. I can't see the logic in gating that off for premium subs. The net benefit to opening that up is more potential sales.
I was hoping for a much larger PS1 library and many more natively running games. The library available for the Extra level is stellar, compared.
I personally stayed with Extra but a lot of friends did the Premium upgrade trick for the next couple years thinking it was going to be the superior tier. Most of them are dropping to Extra when it expires. Or Sony could combine the Extra and Premium into one tier - you get your basic tier with online and free monthly games then the everything else tier.
@Anke Lol. I get that the value of money is relative, but the monthly price difference is literally a couple of coffees.
As others have said, for an additional £1.33 a month, it’s a no brainer.
I was on extra up until a couple of days ago when I upgraded to premium. It cost me £22 something for 735 days so as I had credit in my wallet, I thought why not.
No idea why as I don't have time to play the games I already have from extra without adding new ones at a constant clip.
I'm a premium subscriber and I'm holding out for PS1 classics with trophies that aren't worms or syphon filter.
Yeah, because it's near impossible to downgrade when you don't want to miss out on a sale. My end date is a month after the yearly 25% off sale, I still haven't figured out how to downgrade to Extra without losing the price cut.
I think this number is inflated a little. I think most people signed up for premium to give it a try and their subs are slowly expiring. I'd expect to see a lot of folks downgrade to extra. I know I did.
i bought it because it was on sale lol
Happy with Essential, personally. I have a huge backlog, so I don’t need any more added via a subscription service (my backlog of Essential games alone is huge!)
Didn’t everyone with Now get the free upgrade? I suspect that’s at least part of the reason, plus the very small difference in cost. Interesting to see how things progress though. Personally, VR2 killed the case for me getting Plus as I just have little interest in flat games now. Wonder if they considered that.
I'd agree premium content is lacking and I only have it because it was a cheap upgrade and I was unaware that my renewal fee had dropped out till I checked. I cant understand why they don't drop in hundreds of the PS1 and PS2 games we are crying out for. I would stay longer for better content.
Whilst Mr Maguire's patting himself on the back for PS Premium,there's a few caveats I would like to add about the service...
1) Playstation promised at launch that the Premium/PS Now streaming would be expanded to more territories,whilst PS Deluxe in non streaming regions would see an expanding library of psp,PS1 & PS2 Classics get added monthly. The Premium regional expansions have been few & far between,so still a Deluxe region here.
2) There has been zero "new" PS2 Classic additions since the original PS2 Classics on PS4 program. Most of those PS2 Classics are listed on PSN as having compatibility issues when running on PS5. PS5 at least should have little problem running a very solid PS2 emulation. To not have the library of the biggest selling PS console available for purchase/subscription digitally seems bizarre.🤔
3) PSP/PS1 game library additions have again been few & far between. The third party support in particular has been rather disappointing. Just to rattle off examples,Alundra, Blood Omen Legacy of Kain,(& the others in the series),Dino Crisis 1 & 2,RE 2 & 3, Tomba,Adventures of Lomax, Colony Wars series, Theme Park,nevermind the countless RPG's!
It feels premature to be extolling the promises of being able to add streaming ps5 game purchases when you still haven't fulfilled expanding the Premium regional roll-out,nevermind the lack of additional Deluxe "Classics" library!
PS Extra is a solid enough,especially if you're the type of player who only has a casual indie gaming interest or would prefer to try before you buy them.
But the Deluxe/Premium tier has a lot of room for improvement!😕
@Jayslow
Everybody, Read this person's post carefully. Never mind I'll just repeat what they said.
It's only $20 more for the entire year!!!!
Why does everyone think there should be so much more content than there is? I think Premium subscribers are getting exactly what they are paying for. 3 or 4 additional games are added per month with access to hundreds of PS1, PS2, PS3, and Vita games, Demos, and Cloud gaming. All for only $20 (usd) a month...SMH.
I am not including the Deluxe folks in secondary markets, you guys are getting ripped off.
It's a minute leap with respect to pricing, I imagine that's part of it. Even so, I've yet to feel any real incentive to upgrade. Claiming it's only a couple quid more I think doesn't really address the point, which is that the benefits of premium really aren't that fantastic, even for three pounds or so.
Despite all the flack it seems to get online it’s the premium classic games that I end up playing every month but then again I usually get it when plus goes on sale in December so I’m just paying the price of extra anyways.
Repeating the news cycle from 2-3 weeks ago.
I don't think it's very surprising. If you create tiers, make the top one useless, but price it almost imperceptibly higher than the tier below it, there's not a huge argument to not go with the "top" one simply because it's there. If you don't, you won't really notice the money you saved, it's not much, but you'll notice not having the "best" version.
Slick pricing strategy is all it is.
I like Premium and will stay on it as long as classic games continue to come to it. It's a great value for very little more a year. Most people that complain about it are just entitled gamers that want to whine.
That’s nice. But since I still have my PS3, 4, 5 & Vita, until they drop RESISTANCE: Fall Of Man or Retribution WITH trophy support on PS Premium, I’ll stick w extra thank-you. The one caveat here is if KILLZONE: Liberation gets trophy support next week, they might get me there but that remains to be seen.
@Snake_V5 Same here, but I guess the people whining about the lack of classics are in the minority?
Personally I plan on downgrading to Essentials once my subscription lapses.
I never play any of the games they offer, and the Classics would be cheaper to just buy separately.
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