PS Plus Essential, Extra, Premium Price Increases Announced by Sony

Yikes maybe time to get another year real quick

This has to be a joke....right?

Lol. Imagine paying $160 for one hour game trials.
This is mental

Hahahahaha and there I was about to hold off re-upping on my subscription. Nasty stuff Sony

Sidenote: This is like way more than gamepass right? They have no excuse to charge this much but not offer the same perks anymore. Joke of an industry

They really should just consider consolidating the top two tiers into one. It's like they are purposely pricing the top tier so no one subscribes. £20 more a year for games trials and some mid range PSP games is not worth it.

Yep, premium just died.
Essential I should have stocked up on last time it was on sale. I’ll grab a couple years before this if I can and think it’ll hold.

Good thing I'm covered for like 2 more years with the previous discounts cuz for wut they offer those prices r ridiculous

WOAH! This is a huge price increase, and hard to see how they can justify it. I feel like this is Sony taking their strong lead in the console market and pushing to see how much money they can squeeze from a saturated market. Guess I'll buy another year of Extra before this happens!

Yeah poor really. Especially the premium tier.

I am currently subscribed to extra til September 2024 may get an extra year before price rise if you can do that? But will consider dropping it all together after that.

They'd want to start adding a serious amount more titles to justify these insane price rises.

I’m paid up till May for Extra, so probably around Black Friday/the holidays I’ll keep my eyes peeled for a deal for Extra.

Not really interested in Premium. I don’t think there’s anything that would get me to sub to that service, not even full PS3 bc would do it.

Sorry, but thats a rip-off imo. I got Premium on the promise of PS1 and PS2 games. Sony hasn't done that to anywhere near even my basic levels of satisfaction. Going down a tier next year for sure.

Pretty stout increase. Still worth it imo but the backlash is going to be deafening for sure.

@AdamNovice
Oh of course. How can i forget the PS3 games that we cannot download!

Although I will say Extra has been a terrific value so far

That hurts…gonna get another year at the current price so I don’t have to worry. Like the stuff Extra gives, so not gonna change that.

I’m not too surprised that there is a price increase coming, but I thought Xbox would have increased their GamePass first. I have Premium at the moment, but I will definitely drop down to Extra moving forward.

I expected a 10 euro increase after reading the title. This is the most ridiculous price increase I've ever seen. Been enjoying Extra but might cancel PS Plus in its entirety now.

Trying to figure out if i should get a year of extra or wait till the black friday sale. Probably still won't be under 100 after the discount?

Edited b/c calendars are a thing.🙄

Thinking about it Black friday its usually 20% off isnt it its probably worth waiting til then to up your sub as it will work out slightly cheaper my calculation for extra would be £84 now £80 on black friday.

So how much is this if you sub monthly?

@AdamNovice You can lick the boot, no one is going to take that away from you.

I was already highly unlikely to renew and this just confirms it, just a shame that cloud saves are locked behind this nonsense.

You'd think with the price increase they'd make that dedicated streaming device actually capable of streaming from their now more expensive subscription

More than worth the price of admission tbh.

Probably switch back to essential once my membership ends. Unless they greatly improve their offerings. Now I see why they not going to report their membership numbers anymore lol

I'll be honest, I don't feel I get bang for my buck personally for my £83 Extra as I hardly use it, but that's on me, not Sony. Objectively it is probably value for money.

I used it a bit at the start but now, I've been too busy with games I have bought that aren't on the service.

Mines runs until next summer so I'll leave it for now but I won't be renewing, certainly not for £100 and I don't really see much point in jumping on another year right now neither.

PS+ Premium has been a joke so far and they want 160€ for it now?? When they sometimes didnt add any new Games for a whole month? Naah

I'm set until 2027, thank god
But the increase with no day-one releases is baffling

@AdamNovice So your reaction to these giant price increases is "I must immediately defend Sony at all cost or die trying 😤"

There isn't any combination of numbers they can put on these services that would make you question Sony and you know it!

@rjejr
Nah, dude. They split them out in summer 2022

@bindiana Yep that’s my plan. Extra is well worth it. No need to panic & give Sony money until you have to. You’ll be able to get it around, if not cheaper than the current price.

This is really a move to get all those newcomers that’ll be jumping on board during the holidays & when Spidey 2 is out.

Also keep in mind that Sony always has a Black Friday special with 25% off all levels. Wonder if they continue this year.

I had tried the Premium when it came out, but felt like I did not use it, so currently back down to Essential. It's mainly for cloud saves at this point, since they never allowed PS5 USB saves. Wish the cloud saves were not gated into the plan.

@AdamNovice Define "rational" in this context. Quitting because you perceive a lack of value is the most rational act of all.

The perfect time for a price rise what with our cost of living crisis !!!

@theMEGAniggle It's still cheaper than Game Pass if you buy it annually.

Nice to see GREED is still prevalent in our doomed society due to Climate Change.

20 euros for essential?! These guys been hitting the pipe.
I've been without PS Plus for almost 4 months now and I guess it will continue.

Yeahhhhh I'm likely going to be dropping to a lower tier once my renewal comes up next spring. I'm tempted to just flat-out cancel but I like the cloud saving.

Man bad choice Sony, just as MS raised GPU prices. Like a race to who can be the most expensive. And bad month to announce it when you add 3 bad games.

Fingers crossed Black Friday still has decent savings

Multiplayer should be free. What a crime MS came up with

I don't like what Sony, and gaming as a whole, has become.

Jim Ryan's got to make that money somehow. You wouldn't want him living on the streets now would you....?

This is still such a steal to get high quality games like.....Saints Row and Generation Zero. Yeah with how big my backlog is I'll probably just let it lapse.

@TrickyDicky99 ok thanks for the correction. I need them to offer more for what they're charging. Don't like this one bit

Bloody hell. This is gonna cause a stir...

I'm really not that surprised though. We all know that both MS and Sony will be gradually turning the screws on us in terms of pricing. However, I can't say that this really affects me seeing as I account share with a mate who just pays for Premium anyway... 😲 they better not stop now!

If it was me I'd go with the basic and leave it at that. To be fair I don't even play online games for the most part anyway and I really don't care about 'free' games as I collect physical like a true gamer 😎 (that latter point is tongue-in-cheek in case anyone thinks I'm being serious).

But yeah. This sucks ass.

Just when I thought they started doing good things with extra they do this, nah I love PS but ***** them I'm not going to pay 40 more for old Ubisoft games.

Has extra now but will not renew at all when out next year.
Hope they lose atleast half of their subscribers cause of this.

Coolio. As soon as it lapses, I'm not renewing again. Simple as that. Keep making record profits, Sony. Won't be from me.

Takes some balls to say "it's to keep bringing high quality games" right after announcing Saints Row, but okay.

@Atreus97 Thanks. 👍

True story. I couldn't remember when they did it, SO I LOOKED IT UP, and the article I found was May/June 2023. Which is now updated to 8 minutes ago. Guess I should have used Google.😝

It's still a big jump, but think I'm out. I'll finish up whatever games I have on Essential and that's that. Think I just bought a new year recently on sale for $30 but obviously I'm a highly bad judge of time.😩

$20, $35, and $40? That's a pretty big increase, especially at the top tier. Hopefully it's about to coincide when them announcing they've solved some emulation for PS3 or are about to drop like 30 new titles across all 3 skews...

I find it disturbing how so many people immediately went into defend mode, really you just let these multi-billion (and Trillion) walk all over you? Not only that but you attack anyone that dares question their greed motivated decisions?

PlayStation has never been more profitable in their entire history then they are right now, they are absolutely swimming in profits. But it's never enough for these companies, they don't just want some of the money they want all of it

Honestly, if I didn’t need PS+ to play online, I’d consider unsubscribing from the service altogether.

@Juanalf EXACTLY. Its so disturbing to see this in almost every aspect of society. It's ok to like something but also critique it when its deserved. This same level of defending those looking to enslave or pillage you is seen in the political farce as well. It's just beyond comprehension to defend an entity that engages in behavior that is directly targeting the defender as nothing more than an object to manipulate and gouge every cent possible out of.

The typical corporate strategy: 'we are seeing a plateau of new subscribers and revenue and have little to offer from the first party front in the near future aside from our predatory projects,... whatever should we do? well, we could work on creating more value and content to bolster perception.......... hahahahahahahah nahhhhh we will just increase the price for our current subscribers and bleed them dry!'

This is an absurd price increase. Absolutely ridiculous, Sony seems to be hell bent on burning positive public sentiment to the ground.

@Juanalf who's defending them exactly?

What in the actual F#%@ are they thinking?! Well whatever backlash they get from this will be rightfully so. Reeks of arrogant Sony again....

Can't wait to see what's going to happen when their GaaS games start releasing and requiring PS+ on console and not on PC. Helldivers 2 will be the first real test to see whether the PS fanbase actually has a backbone.

@AdamNovice We're on a PlayStation fansite. We're the biggest fans Sony has. The idea that we are just here to bash Sony is laughable.

It's actually even worse for those of us in the U.S. as those prices don't include the 10-12% tax on top.

So essential is closer to $90, and premium is $177 ish

Sony keep announcing record profits, and just keep milking their customers for everything they are worth. I stopped ps plus at the start of the year and I am glad I did.

And the usual corporate shills are here defending it like clockwork. They have no shame.

It's reasons like this why the ABK deal was needed. We need more competition across the industry, so we all win

That's a pretty drastic price hike across the board. I don't imagine them announcing any sort of added benefit, although maybe they will have more day one releases like Sea of Stars.

But honestly, I don't think Extra is a bad value, even at $135/year. It's like $11/month for 20+ games. I usually only play 3 of them, but I'm willing to spend $3.66/month for those games.

Frankly, I imagine this is a reaction to them seeing a plateau of subscribers. This model only works with high revenue to get new games on the service, ie. throw money at publishers for their libraries and indies need are willing to take less for stability.

I'm glad I bought another year during the last sale though. This is definitely how they get you. I really have enjoyed Extra over the last year and I would never have tried it at $135/year, but I got it initially on sale and was only upgrading from Essential so it was like $30 or something. I'd be hard pressed to drop it now. It's nice to have a few games I've meant to play but would likely never buy show up every 30 days.

….and will they decrease these prices when inflation goes down?

NO, SILLY!

@LifeGirl exactly. we wouldn't be here if we didn't love the medium and the platform. Yet the response is always you are here to bash or incite negativity, rather than offer a meaningful response to one's valid criticisms. I think what is occurring is a perception issue. where an individual cannot fathom a viewpoint that is different from theirs or in any way critical of the platform, and thus is by default negative.

It's a very close minded and ignorant way of thinking.

As I really only have PS+ to access 'online' content in games I bought to play online, this is a kick in the teeth - I already feel like I am being held to Ransom by Sony - pay Sony or don't play the games you paid for.

With Subscription services 'plateauing', this is not a great way to 'encourage' growth - not unless there is 'growth' in the service provided to justify the 'cost'. MS can say they have 'grown' the number of 1st Party Studios and therefore 'grown' the number of Day 1 games coming to 'justify' an increase in costs but I can't see any 'justification' in this. Going up from 1-3 games a year to 4+ does 'justify' a slight increase but getting the exact same 'service' and a focus on online 'GaaS' making PS+ 'essential' to play their first party $70 games is more likely going to push me away from PS+ and Playstation...

80$ for online play access on Non-FTP games. Sony must be really sure of themselves. That's pretty insane. And the announcement goes live just days before BG3 launch on PS5...great timing.

I'm dropping down to Essential. I highly regret bumping upto Premium. It wasn't even close to worth it.

Man £59.99 / $79.99 just for the privilege of playing online is pure insanity, that's the only reason I pay for the service I don't care one way or the other for the free games. Looks like after my subscription finishes I will be a strictly offline player 🤷

@theMEGAniggle i was aleady thinking of selling my ps5 but this makes it easy.
As soon as the price turns normal again.

Congratulations Sony, you just handed services back to GamePass. And you were actually starting to really take off.
Just because everyone else increases prices doesn't mean you have to. Keep it down and attract MORE people. And get even MORE money than potentially losing customers and interest. It's not rocket science.

I'm only on essential and held firm but I'll definitely never 'upgrade' now. It's not worth it.

Profiteering pieces of crap. The service isn’t all that great and increasing the price while trickling PSP Toy Story games or ports of games already on the service is insane. Not to mention £60 a year just to play online, which should be completely free.

@The_ghostmen for an Xbox? Both consoles are stinking right now

Already subbed on Premium until 2031.

I have a solid backlog so I'll be fine without any ps plus going forward. Too bad they ***** the bed on tlou2 & I can always play the next monster hunter on pc. Hope they give me a reason to reconsider in the future!

Complete trash! A 40 dollar price increase for Premium! I've been one that defends this tier since launch but this is egregious. 40 more dollars for 3 or less games a month and stupid game trials that no one wants. I have to seriously consider if this is even worth it anymore.

This is very disappointing. If they are going get closer to gamepass prices they are going to have to deliver a more competitive product. Give us more day ones or at least guarantee first party games will go on Extra within a year of release. They need to do something to justify this hike because “we want more money” isn’t going to cut it.

I really hate paying for online multiplayer as it is, annoys me that even the Switch is on-board with it. 😠

Poor show Sony. Won't be renewing at these prices.

If they want me to remain subbed to Extra, they better improve the quality (or volume) of the games offered by 35% or they can F right off with that. That is ABSURD.

Price increase on the same day your monthly games are the lowest rated offerings in YEARS 😂😂😂😂

Whilst Game Pass Ultimate paid for monthly is a lot more expensive, you can find deals that make it much cheaper for a year then Sonys service and even more so now. I've never seen deals on Sonys service though.

@AdamNovice yes there are also 3 forgetable ps1 and psp games every month.
I regret getting premium so I was thinking about dropping to extra, but now its gonna have to be essential only for me.

I swear they only put it up within last year? Annoying

Why is that a 20% increase in price for the European market but a 35% increase for the U.S.?

This sh👎t is just horrible.you gave the worst month ever on psplus essential and you announced a price increases.wtf.just horrible.word up son

@S1ayeR74 also game pass ultimate includes day one releases, which can immediately save a lot of money. Playstation Extra tends to include older games which go on sale quite often anyway.

If it was a $5 increase most of us would be understanding, $10 increase would be questionable but okay let's have a conversation. $20 to $40 increase is just Sony asking us to bend over and cover our mouths.

I don't have an Xbox but this is why we need strong competition like we had in the 360 era, they would have never done anything like this in fact they probably would have slashed the prices

Was planning to ditch my sub after this month anyway and this just confirms that.
I don't play online and the games aren't really that appealing to me for the most part so it's pretty pointless.

I better finish playing Elden Ring, because there's no way I'm paying $80 to play any game with online functionality after my subscription expires next year.

I'll be on the lookout for sales on subs whenever (or if) they happen. Bad Sony, bad.

Literally called it on release date, these companies are too greedy not to rises prices asap.

Also to note is the recent announcement that streaming devices are suffering recently.

Personally I think games leave ps extra way too soon some in under a year. Meanwhile look at the contract Apple archived for Apple Arcade. Sony/PlayStation need to sort it out and gamers need to grow a backbone the bloody spineless jelly. Most acting like some addict eager for the next fix.

Gaming slowly becoming some shameful industry full of the lowers intellects, simps and pushovers!

Damn. And they recently had a really good sale price and I waited for the similar Black Friday deal because that is when my subscription ends. Typical.

I wish Sony would offer a model with no benefits but online play for like £30 a year.

£100 for extra is technically a great deal for those with the time. For me I’d rather spend that on 4-5 games I actually really want to play. I’m behind so I’ve got a backlog of cheaper games to get to.

@HeeHo Look on the bright side — the last showcase contained zero multiplayer games worth an $80 annual sub

Does anyone want to tell Sony that they are a little early for April Fools Day?

The only real benefit I got, was cloud storage. Being able to redownload save data that I had deleted x months ago was handy. I rarely took advantage of the free games, as most of the time, I already had them, or weren't interested in the lineup. And I don't play online that much anymore. When my Essential subscription expires in December, I had been considering not renewing it. Thank you, Sony, you just made my decision all the more easier.

They announce this steep increase just as Xbox/Microsoft are about to release their biggest exclusive in ages…great timing as always Sony 🙄

so what are they going to put in there to justify the price increases past few months has been lame

They better back it up with more recent titles for Extra and better legacy titles for Premium. Else, I'm back to the lowest tier come December.

So what will be the increase if it's monthly? You showed yearly.

@BAMozzy I mean it was Xbox who came up with the pay to play online BS. But I guess you conveniently ‘forget’ that.

I've only bought plus just for the online component and cloud storage. In fact if I'm highballing it I think I've played the downloadable games at best 3 times since the PS3 and I'm 99% certain they were still cheaper to buy outright, essential already was more of a borderline necessity only due to paywalling a previously free feature.

So far the only thing I getting from this is that they're vaguely talking about getting better games for the service, and that's an empty promise.

What in the actual hell is Sony thinking? Why? Sony releases maybe two games a year and they want us to pay even more for less? I'm out. This is so stupid.

I’m set through 2/25 but will probably drop Extra at that point.

Luckily I just renewed mine at the start of the month so don't need to worry about it for a while but the increase seems really steep and exceptionally bad timing. The backlash will be fully deserved. Sony were actually starting to build some positive vibes about Extra and this will just undo all the good work.

Huh - I read through the comments and am shocked to see everyone on the same page more or less.

1. People think it is a steep, undeserved price hike
2. Many want to downgrade to essential

I think I will also consider downgrading or discontinuing the service altogether since my friends and I never game together online anymore. Also, SONY has run out of bangers to put on. Every month I said: Wow, are they putting this on? I actually had less fun actually trying them. This confirms my bias: I should stick to buying games. (There are some caveats to my opinions and evaluation of the service, because overall I am satisfied with the deals I've gotten so far).

I think that they don't care, they will more likely fear that ordinary people (not devoted fans on this site) notice the price hike and react, hence the announcement being wrapped into a presentation of (very bad) games.

I do look forward to trying Generation Zero.

I wish Sony would sell a PS+ package that only focuses on being able to play online.

I'm really not interested in the fantastic and massive collection of PS+ games at the different tiers.

I can barely muster the time and energy to play the games I've purchased myself, there's no way I could take advantage of the PS+ game collection/library.

I would just like to play Gran Turismo Sport online now and then to try and get my 3rd victory, having raced online 75 times previously.

That is actually insane.
>enable us to continue bringing high-quality games
And then they add Saints Row and Generation Zero?? Im sorry, but where is the quality?

Combined with the bad showcase, this actually has me wondering whether I should sell my PS5. Just muddle along on PC until new Horizon and Tsushima, which could be 4+ years away

@PsBoxSwitchOwner. The apostrophes around forget are hilarious. The abundance of those in that dude’s posts always bother me. It’s like I’m stressing every other word when reading.

@Sakai the hypocrisy of claiming "corporate shills" and then rooting for the ABK deal... you know Microsoft will be both locking content being their subscription and raising prices. It isn't any better. Microsoft also have their fingers in many other scummy pies too, like renting us Windows these days. Being a "shill" is supporting consolidation and consolidation is where it's at atm. The competition here is who can make the most profit.

Sony, Microsoft and pretty much every other damn multi-billion £ company out there is trying to rinse us common folk at the moment and it's not just gaming that's being affected.

The same day Starfield launches into their rivals game service they jack up the price of their own by $40? Interesting move Sony.

This has pushed me to cancel my subscription now. I meant to do it before it renewed but I forgot. I've got till next June and it won't auto renew. It's very easy to do via the PlayStation app. Subscription gaming just doesn't work for me. I see them as "less than" games.

In the year that I've had it I think I've finished 3 of the games. A lot of the games I already own and was happy to buy them full price or in a sale and the rest are just clutter that I wouldn't play anyway. It's a bit of a waste on me.

Welp. Time to downsize, I guess

A 30-35% jump and they give us like a weeks notice? I highly doubt we will get 30% better service or 30% more features lol. It’s odd Sony is trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Psvr 2 is lacking games, PlayStation portal doesn’t make sense, Microsoft is buying up top tier gaming studios, and now the cheapest gamepass plan is cheaper than the cheapest ps plus plan as of Sept 14. Frustrating.

@AdamNovice Or maybe they're just greedy

I already questioned my Extra membership.

I guess the streaming is a nice feature but they add far too few classic games. I think I've used the feature twice when bored since the service launched.

Guess I'll maintain what I have until it expires and drop down to essentials once it's up.

@BAMozzy you are aware you don't need ' ' around every other word, right? 😂

Also if you want to emphasise words then use * * to make the bold. ' ' is just quoting which makes it harder to read.

Wow I let my subscription expire last August because of how things with the economy we going and money etc. Now I'm almost back on my feet I was contemplating ps plus extra or premium. Now I think I won't bother with any of them. I don't treally play online games but I was really interested in the extra catalogue and the classic games on premium. But this is too much.

I think I will.stick to buying games in sales or off ebay 2nd hand months down the line cheap. 😞

And 5he coming monthly games is shockingly poor

@Bionic-Spencer They have, xbox game pass is increasing this month. Its going up by 2 £/$/€ a month or something like that.

@Loamy the comment was about increased competition across the industry, which is desperately needed, not supporting one company over the other. Talk about insecure

Not happy with this

Wow. This is likely to get me to downgrade next year when my renewal comes up.

Going back to Essential from Extra. It was a good tier, but it's that increase is just too much.

Eek. That's a pretty big price hike. I would have expected like a $10 one but essential is $80? Ouch.

@Sakai Huh? What are you on about? My point was that it wouldnt be a benefit for us considering the prices will (and have already) be going up and up during a cost of living crisis and we're all poorer, only benefitting corporations like Sony and Microsoft who are making record profits while buying up more of the industry. Nothing about fanboy BS. "Talk about insecure"... there's a bigger picture here.

Do you really believe that any of this will result in us having more money in our pockets or more choice? No. MS and Sony will be charging more due to "better quality content" and other BS reasons. MS acquiring ABK is just even more justification to raise the price of GP. It seems like Sony don't even need an excuse to screw us. Its the same result for us - we're buggered.

I'm in a poor financial situation right now, and then they announce this...

Thankfully, I already bought a subscription this month so I'm good for about a year, but still...

Just a reminder that a $30 increase might mean 3x or even 5x depending on what country you're in.

That was definitely a bad move from Sony.

I have been a plus member for a long time, but this might be it for me. I have some time to decide but-even the essential tier feels like a bit of a rip off at this point. I like the service-but not THAT much.

The additional money is not that big a deal in the grand scheme, but at those price points I am starting to feel taken advantage of for what we actually get. And, as the write up points out, there are no details about the hypothetically fabulous new benefits we will receive for this price hike.

I think Sony went too far. Not the biggest deal in the world, but a little too much for my taste without receiving more from the service.

Just a friendly reminder that the gaming industry is just a gigantic oligopoly, and we were all screwed from the very beginning.

I was already thinking about how much I’d like to have PS+ Extra, but couldn’t afford it. Now I’m gonna have to see if I can afford to have Plus at all. I’ve had a Plus subscription since day one, and have never let it lapse.

Smart move Sony! Way to treat your loyal customers.

Other companies have increased prices and layed off employees, all in the name of “inflation”, when we all know it’s not, it’s actually “We didn’t make as much profit as we had during lockdown, and the top executives would’ve had to reduce their bonuses by millions of dollars to keep the shareholders happy.” So Sony felt they could get away with the same thing.

I don’t encourage harassment, but I hope the backlash to this announcement is as swift and loud as the PS Vita and PS3 store closures, and it gets reversed within a week.

Why don't you guys mention euro prices? It's rather annoying.

Anyway, I guess I'll let my essential lapse. I only had it for multiplayer occasionally. PC gaming is looking better and better.

A price increase is not unexpected, but these adjustments seem to steep. If Sony intends to use the money to make the service better, so be it, but I have a feeling the service is just getting more expensive to keep profits high.

@Loamy increased competition almost always leads to lower prices or less high prices. I believe the ABK deal will increased competition in the gaming industry, maybe even it out a little, and us as consumers across various platforms will benefit from that.

Nowhere am I shilling for one company, like you tried to imply by calling me a hypocrit. I am in support of the consumer

My PS Plus Premium sub is getting binned when its due for renewal then.

Back to the standard PS plus it is.

@Sakai sorry but that's just naïve imo and not what the current situation is demonstrating. And I didn't say you're shilling for one company did I though? I said you're rooting for a massive acquisition (doesn't matter who's doing it) that'll lead to a worse climate for us while calling other people shills, therefore kinda being a shill yourself (I'm only saying "shilling" because you used the label for others and that's why I said it was hypocritical). You can disagree of course but we'll have to wait and see. I'd bet money on me being able to say "I told you so" in 5 years time. I'm also willing to take an "I told you so" from you lol

@AdamNovice The US government lets Wall Street run wild and the result is that every industry is charging more and offering less. This is why Hollywood is on strike, it's why more big employers are resorting to offering contract jobs without benefits, and it's why every subscription service is increasing its prices.

This is being done to protect their stock price. Fundamentally, it's about greed.

this has to be a joke at this point, they are just bleeding us dry, the essential tier is not even worth £60!!! what the heck!

@AdamNovice
Bundling in Crunchyroll would be wild! The Venn diagram of people who like anime and people who like video games is almost a perfect circle.

@AdamNovice this has to be a joke
Are you on Jim's paychek at least? Or are you just defending sony for the love you have in your heart?

Steep price rises indeed.
Haven't paid full price due to discounted PSN cards/codes for many a year, but regardless of that will have a long think about which tier to renew to next July.
Hmm, let it lapse and have a ponder.

A 10 dollar increase, I could live with. But 20 stings a bit more and I don't really understand why. We don't really get added discounts like we used to. And I don't remember the last time I played a free monthly game. I really am just paying for online at this point.

@PsBoxSwitchOwner I don't forget that at all - its equally as bad on Xbox in that respect, but I also believe their 'Gold' is actually cheaper than PS+ is (or was) and is included in GPU - along with EA Access, Game Pass PC, Game Pass Mobile and 'perks' on top of Day 1 access on ALL first Party games (as well as numerous 3rd Party/independent Games) where ever I want to play - be it on Console, on my Laptop, on my RoG Ally or any 'cloud enabled' device like my Mobile.

I still 'begrudge' paying money for 'Online' access (which I do as part of my GPU Subscription) but overall, I think the value of GPU to me is worth it - I'm not just paying for 'online' access as I feel I am with PS+ because 'Extra' doesn't offer me 'much' I haven't played or would pay 'extra' to play and have 'no' interest in playing PS3 and 'older' games for Premium - I don't play PS3 games in my backlog today that I still own so I am 'only' paying for 'Online' Access - which is basically 'free' with Game Pass Ultimate on Xbox - and I get to play games the day they release, not 'old' games that I couldn't be bothered to buy and 'waited' until they were 'free' in a Sub services, Games I would 'buy', Games I really want to play, excited for 'release' day, certainly never played (or could play) before games, saving me upto $70 each time. Also can play 'Starfield' on my PC and my Console so get 'both' versions - don't need to 'buy' both...

By the you get to play 'Spider-Man 2' on PS+, its 'old' news and people are looking forward to the 'next' thing. Its probably cheaper (certainly in the Physical markets) maybe easy to find 'used' to for the price of a month or two of PS+. So unless I get 'more' for my extra £10 its going to cost to keep PS+ when the price feels 'steep' for what I get 'now' on PS+, its making me want to quit PS+, which seriously limits the choice of games I can play on PS, so therefore maybe not worth remaining on Playstation beyond the limit of my current PS+ subscription...

@Loamy it works in almost every other industry, so why not gaming. Its not as crazy as you think. You believe it will be worse, I believe it will be better. That's just how opinions work I'm afraid. But you seem to just want to belittle people who have a different opinion to yourself, good luck with that

@LifeGirl speak for yourself I see many people on here who constantly only bash sony

This is also an indication that the first party software situation is a complete mess and they expect to be desperate for revenue following Spider-Man 2.

@Sakai it will increase competition but it may also accelerate industry consolidation which ultimately is bad for the consumer.

No one knows which way it will go until the deal goes through so its fear of the unknown at this point but if it does, it will hurt the consumers you support.

Also Microsoft does this and it’s fine but hey ho

@Atreus97 u blame PS3 hardware on that

@Sakai again, Huh? 😂 again the hypocrisy! I'm not trying to belittle anyone. I'm just pointing out what that I think your point isnt correct and is a contraindication. You are the one originally trying to belittle me and calling other people "shills" for having a different opinion lol. Which is literally what you've just accused me of. Telling me I'm insecure while getting offended now. 😂

Sorry. Let's just stop communicating.

You’d think the month they are announcing this they would have some really good games to justify it!

@Boucho11 Yeah. This smells like it's an emergency

COVID really gave Sony and Microsoft a taste for increased profit margins.

Chickens are coming home to roost now.

This flat out disgusts me. I have playstation plus premium and i consider that to be a waste of money as it but to now turn around and try to raise prices during a recession and price gouge us is so disgusting and shameful as if this damn company inst already making billions of dollars hand over fist as it is. People need to protest, boycott, do something because collectively we have to let this company know we are not going to stand for it. At least, I know I'm not. I will not be renewing and I flat out am sick of this nonsense.

@JalapenoSpiceLife it not worth 60 dollars the games we get go past that 60 dollars mark every year

yikes. that's nasty. Other than cloud saves, I don't even get any value from PS+ anymore

@KoldFire we not in a recession and ask Netflix how that turn out for them we they started charging for extra people they made more money

Sony probably had to increase the price because of how hard Gran Turismo predictably bombed at the box office.

@Loamy Actually, in the 'UK' its an accepted way of writing for emphasis - it seems that in some countries it 'irritates' them despite the fact that I don't use 'Quotation' Marks which are " not '.

I don't criticise people for the way they choose to express themselves, the way they write etc and as that has **NOTHING** to do with the 'topic', then I would suggest you either 'ignore' the way I choose to write or use the 'ignore' function to hide my comments...

@AdamNovice If you've got any compelling information, please share. I would love to have a reason to continue as a PS+ subscriber

@BAMozzy Ooer. Sorry mate. I was only being lighthearted about it. Not actually trying to seriously chastise you. I'm also from the 'UK' btw.

Edit: I'm kinda bummed I've managed to make people here think I'm trying to be anti-social. My posts are usually in good humour (despite sometimes missing the mark and being a bit dry) and I am certainly willing to take a load back on myself. Talking through text over the internet doesn't help recognition of your tone or mood does it? Sincerely sorry if I've upset anyone.

Yep, Xbox did it and now Sony follows suit. This is the darkside to these subscription services. Notice, Xbox removed their free trails a week before Starfield releases. I'm sure that is just a coincidence....

@Slayer25c Do you work in the financial sector? We are 100% absolutely in a recession in the USA, either you don't have a job or you're insulated from the real world. Either way, you're entitled to your views as strange as they may be. Always some odd company shills who come out of the woodwork to defend corporate price gouging and tell you nothing is wrong. So bizzare.

Well I might just cancel it all together

@BAMozzy is it genuinely? I’ve never ever seen anyone other than yourself to use ‘ so many times in a sentence (from UK also).

In all honesty it makes your (well informed) posts extremely hard to read, they have to be read several times to actually fully grasp your meaning.

I've quickly gone through the comments and I haven't noticed anyone say Premium has gone up less than £2 a month which is essentially what this is but all of this looks way worse when you read £20 quid extra a year. Not in anyway trying to defend a payrise for the sub I'm not stupid enough to do that but it does sound a little better when you say to yourself it's gone up just under £2 a month. Either way it sucks, unless they've got some good quality to add to the sub soon like managing to get PS3 and PS2 classics on Premium and Extra

This only for yearly subscription u can do month to month or quarterly u don't need to buy a whole year it not big deal if u can do it that is great for you if u can't then go to a lower tier or stop paying for a year.

@KoldFire gaming is a luxury if u can't afford it then go to a lower tier or not have it at all. I'm so tired people always complaining about something that they really don't need

@Slayer25c Why is this dude literally shilling for this company? What is this dudes agenda. I don't get it. Are you trolling or something? YOu realize the majority of people are upset about these constant price hikes, riiight ??? Or you're just tone deaf?

@Slayer25c Dude, you're clueless. You just went on perma ignore. bye

@AdamNovice All of your reasons are wild speculation. Your idea that they're going to shift to a day one model is pure BS. It's much more likely that Jim Ryan has screwed the pooch chasing the already-dead Fortnite fad and they're desperate to shore up their #s for 2024 earnings calls.

I'm actually looking forward to the inevitable headline in about 4 months
"PS+ subscribers decline on ALL tiers following price increases"

Maybe they'll see sense. But I doubt it. This'll be interesting. I was equally appalled when Microsoft did this and that stunt of stopping 'cheap' conversions and ending trials.

Welcome to the future of gaming.

@KoldFire whatever u think u ignoring going to do something it internet sir.

I'll not renew my signature, that's it.

I think I'll hold off on buying another year before the price bump and get it on some kind of sale again instead. There's usually one for Black Friday.

Who on earth pays the RRP for these services??? Buy in sales, use discounted credit etc.

I have PS+ Premium until 2031 thanks to the PS Now conversion loophole and 3 years of GPU that I stacked for around £45 a year.

People paying full price and then whining about it all being very expensive are doing it wrong.

When fanboys cheerlead and worship Sony’s every move that’s what happens.

This is absolutely insane

This increase is steep, @theMEGAniggle, and the reason Sony have done it is because they can! Just as with being the first to increase the pricing on consoles and games, they know that their userbase will just follow along because everyone loves their PlayStation, right?

@Voltan You might as well go for $53 for one year essential via Cdkeys. Black Friday ain't gonna be better than that.

I was personally planning to lapse from Aug-Nov and then consider a fresh Extra coinciding with Black Friday. I enjoyed having Premium for 9 months but as someone who'd played a lot of PS4 games, I couldn't justify a full price renewal. At this point I'm just going to play online on PC until Sony can make amends for the putrid May showcase.

@Pranwell it’s still more expensive across the board,that $20 impact will not just disappear. Just like how it takes longer for those $70 games to drop to $20

@Shad361 That is a fact. It's one thing to like and enjoy a company and it's products or services and another entirely to applaud and white knight their every misdeed or misstep especially when it's so patently anti-consumer.

This is a gross increase. If I wasn’t already set until 2027, I’d unsubscribe when expired. This is bizarre.

WTF I have premium but it seems like extra will cost more than that. I wont pay for premium I'm 100% sure. Extra still worth it but I'm not happy at all.

People have been complaining about the lineup for months and then Sony chooses to jack up the prices? They better get native PS3 emulation working on the PS5 if they want to justify it. I'll gladly pay extra if they do that.

@ATaco they working on ps 2 emulator right now what the rumor is

@theMEGAniggle hell no not an xbox.
i close friend gave his high end pc for 6 months because he was going on a long vacation.
and in some way i can't get back to a controller.
this price increase could just make me sell it and invest in a 1200 bucks pc.

if i can get past losing 13 years of psplus.

may i aks you would you switch.

@Artois2 he really is.

Yikes, not a great move. If there is some kind master plan to expanding the value of the service to justify the increase, Sony better come out with it before this goes into effect - otherwise it just looks like a slap in the face to consumers.

Online play and Cloud saves should be standard across the board on console. Maybe focus on providing value in a different way. Think outside the box, Sony.

@Mauzuri are you daft or a comedian? Spider-Man sold 33 Million copies as of June 2022.

PlayStation for the payers

@Loamy I think game pass will get a price increase each year now in June. I don't like this bs price increase on PS+ and I'm thinking of dropping to Essential.

@Mauzuri lmao 🤣 sure while Microsoft wil remain 3rd why because one game won't put them on top most of starfield sales be on pc anyway besides can u really count it as 1st party from scratch and spiderman 2 wil outsell.

@XenonKnight I really wouldn't be surprised. They have to keep up profits somehow and subscribers are falling 🤷

I'm defo gonna be sticking to Essential from now on.

Mmm…

Reckon they’ve just paid for an expensive acquisition by any chance?

@Loamy I need the online play but I don't need extra.

From the blog post, it seems like 1-month and 3-month prices are remaining as-is. That's interesting, as those plans are now more valuable than they were yesterday. Good to know I can grab 3 months of Essential/Extra for $25/$40 when needed

I will be "downgrading" to Extra if this is the case. "Premium" is terrible value for money and none of the features are worth it, at all.

Extra is great. Premium, honestly, sucks.

@VaultGuy415 that what people don't get they don't need to pay for a year

@Shad361 I agree, that's why you look for good deals and stack well ahead. It's just good sense.

And most reports focus on that headline price, which no-one should be paying. Those paying that must be like people who pay full price for a broadband package I suppose.

@AdamNovice I'm a massive PlayStation fan and I want the platform to be successful. It does not seem to be on the right track, based on what we actually know. I hope they have a bunch of secret first-party hits on the way but that seems unlikely.

@Smash41 It would be alright if they actually wheeled out some decent titles but the selection of PSP and PS1 games has been terrible.

It’s only games they already sell (sold?) on the PS3/PSP store. I can understand why the likes of MGS or Final Fantasy haven’t come out but how about Alundra, WipEout or Soul Reaver?

I rarely buy new games so my monthly games are worth it.

I guess with this new PS5 streaming service coming that this price hike.was going to happen.

At least Game Pass you get AAA releases in your subscription on day release.

I can't express how disappointed I am.

I already found less and less value in Gamepass and plan to drop it when my sub is up. My PS+ Premium got a little more play, though not tons either — and this seals it. I'm either dropping down to Extra or Essentials, but probably just going back to Essentials. I'll miss the classics and cloud streaming, but not enough for $40 more a year.

This seems like it's just going to cause everyone to downgrade and Sony will lose even more money.

I love Extra, but since my first year I've not really been taking advantage of games on it, just mostly using the essential for online gaming.

So the dilemma (not really a dilemma) is do I randomly get loads of years stacked (nope) or just wait and see when it runs out at the risk of slightly increased price if I do decide I want to keep it (probably) but also, I subbed when there was a sale anyway, so I'll be ending at the time of the next sale, so the price won't be much different.

Hopefully this gives an idea of people's desire to keep subs or not, and shows Sony the direction to go. It's not exactly a huge increase, but if more people leave premium, they might rework the whole thing

The new PS+ tiers still don't feel fully realized (not that many classics, no PS5 streaming, not many day-and-date deals). Now they're raising prices by a significant margin.

This kind of feels like it might kill off the service. Or bring everything crashing back down to Essentials.

Welp, im dropping to essential when it runs out next june. If any game of note comes to premium i will be al la carte.
This is why subscriptions suck

@VaultGuy415 I dunno man. I'd say it's very likely there are quite a few first part big hitters coming our way. We know of tons of studios working on projects currently. There have been many rumours of delays so we can't be certain when they'll be coming but Sony can't leave it much longer, can they? 🤔

@Sakai
Despite how Microsoft tries to spin it, ABK being acquired means less competition, not more.

@CallMeDuraSouka the US didn't get a PS5 price increase like most did so I guess this is why they increased it more?

@Loamy They had so little in May they felt the need to show that complete headscratcher of a Concord trailer. It was a very grim showcase, and it's all we've got to go on. I hope I'm wrong...

Look, I can afford it, but of course nobody will ever like any price increase. $135 a year is still a steal for how many games I get access to. Many of which were games I was on the fence about buying but now get to try, and maybe even find an unknown gem here and there.

Wow. This thread turned ugly.

I only pay Essentials for cloud saves since I don't have time to play online. Cloud saves should have been free or movable via USB. I guess I will subscribe only for the month I need the cloud saves

The premium increase is a joke with how little they have there and slow drip feed. Essentially is basically online play. If i stop with multiplayer gaming, probably bouncing out from subscription, its way too pricy

@VaultGuy415 Yeah it's been pretty slim for reveals this year 😬 I'm crossing all my fingers and toes! 🤞

@EvenStephen7 ps5 streaming coming in next ps update it in beta right now

Not worth the cost to begin with

Clear insanity. It’s going to be above 100$ in Canada for essential.

I feel silly for just defending the value of PS+ Extra over on the other article from yesterday. That’s a painful price hike! And it seems like the US price is even worse when factoring we have taxes on top of that. What a shaft! 😅

Is monthly staying the same? the wording leads me to believe it's going up.

The increase is too steep. When my Extra runs out in 2024 I won't renew it and probably even won't pay for Essential for few months. I do not play MP games often, I usually prefer story driven single player games. If they want too much money from me they might just end up having none.

Eh. Might be just switching to extra then.

I’ll support “PlayStation” to the hilt because I want to be gaming until I’m dead frankly. But when it’s “Sony” doing this and just taking the piss, again..frankly it’s hard to take

I mean it does suck paying more money BUT just skip a few fancy coffees during the year and it will pay the extra 👍🏻

I must confess, as someone who has never subscribed to PS+, this has been very interesting to see the reactions to this. I feel like these price hikes were always inevitable, and to think if online wasn't part of the equation, perhaps the situation would be very different.

I certainly hope people who genuinely do not like the price hike actually follow through with letting subscriptions lapse. It never should have got to this point in the first place with people paying an additional fee to play online.

Yay subscription services! 😂

I am glad I converted all plus and still have almost 9 years left.

This seems like a pretty steep increase to me. Especially for essential. It is 33-35% at all tiers. Extra and premium are being brought in-line with the GP price increases so I can kind of understand those.

It seems like people who don't care about online will drop essential altogether.

What about £13.49, will that change or not?

I’ll continue my subscription through offers and what not, seems to offer a good service of offerings for me and my family.

If of course people choose not to subscribe that is equally fine.

Don’t really know what else there is to say. Everything is going up in price other than the price of human labour, such is the world, sadly.

I understand why people may not appreciate or like the £2 a month price increase, but it’s worth it for myself currently.

@Bionic-Spencer MS did try to literally double the price of Gold a few years ago, and was met with so much backlash they reversed it and made F2P games actually free to play

got 3 months of extra in early july and meh, tried a few games here and there, probably wont renew it, its a shame bc i was considering getting the essential to play street fighter 6 in the future, not anymore tho

Well this was about as inevitable as snow in Antarctica. Hope everyone that myopically supports these models have enjoyed their cake while they had it. Going forward, I’d very much like to see Sony provide a bare bones online connectivity package at a rational price or I too will be keeping my eye on the exit.

@TheElectroFunky everything including Sonys profits.

I just topped up my 2 years with another of premium using a discounted shopto PSN card. I use extra a lot more since I expanded my SSD. There are some hidden gems in there. I’m right into the original Everspace right now after seeing the sequel.I also trade in my full price titles for credit when they appear in the catalogue. If you buy too many games when they first come out you won’t give yourself time to get the value from it.

@BAMozzy it's accepted to use inverted commas occasionally and not just in the 'UK', but if you really think your first post (which is short by your standards) required 'emphasis' 13 times, then I suggest you re-read it.

Sony - for the Money.

Is it only the 12 month subscription price that's changing?

@Loamy I tried to re-read your reply to see if I got the wrong end of the stick, but could not confirm as they have all been edited alot. But if I did read it incorrectly, I would like to apoligize to you for my response

So the PS top tier is still cheaper than GPU, PS mid tier like $1-2 more per month than GP. Everyone freaking out clearly hasn't done the math. I get the hike for essential was a bit steep though. I understand it from each side, inflation means they gotta raise prices and that measly $10 extra on 1st party games was erased by it. Still $80 for cloud saves and 3 typically decent games a month (not this month) is still a great deal. Those 3 games pay for the service themselves after 2-3 months, they're not the drivel XB hands out.

@SlipperyFish yeah, I remember that. I guess that there will be more to come from them, that’s for sure!

@SeanOhOgain So you just contributed to the price gouging. Good one...

To me sony know they can't compete with Microsofts billions by making a subscription service which will have exclusives launch every 2-3 months on that service. So they aren't taking it seriously and are treating it as a side project whilst for Microsoft it's their saving grace.

They surely know they will lose subscribers by raising the price so much but they just don't care about this business model.

@TheCollector316 I dont agree, but respect your opinion

@Sakai Edited because I didnt want to potentially upset more people with harsher words. Genuinely sorry if I pissed you off. We can agree to disagree but I'd rather leave on a more positive/respectful tone. So hope you are doing well and happy gaming 💕

I just checked and this is only for the 12 month subscription packages. The 1 month and 3 month subscriptions are staying the same price.

I usually pay monthly so this won't affect me but still this new price works out cheaper than buying 12 separate 1 month subs so I don't see the big fuss.

Glad I moved on to PC gaming this gen. This generation is beyond worse than the ps3 one.

Also MS literally offers so much more value if you only game on consoles. You even get starfield day one and perssona 3 reload on their subscription service. While with this trash you get two of the worst games of all time.

I happen to think extra is fantastic, I got a ton of value from it over the past year and I'll probably grab another year over black Friday using some shopto workarounds. I'm playing Sea Of Stars right now which is a quality game, it would of cost me £29 without extra. More of that and I don't really give a ***** about the increase, I still feel a little over £8 a month represents insane value for money (even less with shopto).

The premium cost increase is ridiculous though, I can't say anything redeeming about that tier, and I can't wrap my head around the timing of these announcements in general.

Anyway, you're wasting your time getting angry on here talking about it. Speak with your wallets if you're genuinely aggrieved. Sony seeing a significant drop in their subscription numbers is the best way to get their attention.

Writing is on the wall for subscriptions, so this is simply turning the pro sub people into even bigger cash cows. All of these companies are desperately trying to keep those lockdown numbers intact and it ain't gonna happen.
As for Sony itself, this is what happens when you're the market leader, your fans let you get away with everything and you have little competition.

@AdamNovice Yo my guy. Did Jim ryan pay you to advertise on here? Or did you stop thinking for yourself because of the sony brand?

@BAMozzy its not exactly common usage tho. dont think he was trying to have a go at u either.

Gamepass is cheaper than PS Plus Premium and gives far better perks with Starfield dropping Day 1.

@IronMike they r all for the money really!

@Onkydonk I wasn't...

@Shad361 Oh absolutely, I expect a for profit companies profits to increase year on year until market saturation takes place.

If Sony as a shareholder corporation didn’t increase its profits since its creation it would be a failure to investors.

Unfortunately, just as is the case with my business, money needs to be made, and ideally more of it, year on year.

It’s just crap really, I dislike price rises yet I get it. So ultimately I just choose to fund what I find entertains me, or is necessary.

I mean electricity doubled in the UK and yet the companies made record profits, and the only reason people have stopped chatting about that is they have no choice but to pay it.

This is different, it’s a form of entertainment, if people don’t like the price, they don’t need to pay.

Like I don’t pay full price for some things yet do others.

Simple really. A for profit company wants to make more money, and as it’s not a vital to your existence company, such as water and so forth, we can as people just not pay it.

If it’s a charge I have a choice to pay, then I don’t argue about it or whine, I simply do or do not pay depending on my interests and the perceived value.

Unlike many, I don’t actually mind companies making a lot of money, that doesn’t inherently offend me or negatively impact me directly.

Now, what companies choose to do with said money is another story entirely. Both ethically and morally, even legally, there’s a lot I can pull up Sony, Microsoft and so on for …

But for wanting to make money, nah.

My PS Plus Essential sub is valid for the next 2 weeks only and I decided to let it go since I don't care about the titles they give away. I would like to thank Sony for proving me I made the right decision.

Instead I'll invest in my physical collection which I actually will own and which actually is worth something.

@Fiendish-Beaver I know we all love gaming and are borderline addicted to it, maybe past the point of addiction. But we need to stop. We have been getting jerked left right and centre by this industry, especially in the last few years. And it's only going to get worse. We all need to vote with our wallets. Daylight robbery literally

@Czar_Khastik Yup, my thinking as well. I hardly play games online anymore, and if they keep making these subscriptions more expensive, they will be too expensive to be worthwhile as I might as well just put that money towards buying/owning games that I really want.

With this price increase I think they might already be there. I don't think I can justify PS+ anymore, I simply don't need it.

Dropping to Essential when sub is due, just dont have the time to get to my backlog nevermind the time restricted extra games.

@The_ghostmen yeah I'd switch to a high end PC in a heartbeat 😂

Start of this gen I was arguing that there won't be a point in the next 5 years where we'd get PS exclusives on PC within 3 years of release and I used that to justify me getting and keeping a PS5. I was so wrong. Get a PC. Save up £2k or whatever it is. It's always been the ultimate gaming experience and with all Xbox games on PC day 1, new PS5 games being developed for PC and PS5, it makes sense now to hop on.

So yes my friend, I will upgrade my PC and just use that when my PS5 dies. It's just not really worth it anymore

@Vega37 GPU includes PC gaming and a better cloud service.

I don't think that comparison is very relevant. That being said, I think the biggest problem is at the bottom where essential is now $20 higher than Microsoft.

Hopefully this turns more people away from subscription gaming, though saying that makes me a bit of a hypocrite seeing as I actually have PlayStation Extra. 😅

Very disappointing to see a price increase. If they don’t step up their efforts to improve the service then I might just let mine expire. I’m more of a single player anyway. It’s like I either need to go all in on the subscription and stop buying games or just buy the single player games while skipping PS+ entirely

Are the price changes to the monthly or three-month subscription tiers? It says the annual subscription is being increased but still discounted. How, if monthly and the three-month prices aren't increased?

The damage control from the usuals is hilarious. But anyway Playstation are desperately trying to position themselves as a premium product but I don’t think they have earnt it.

@JayJ That's the spirit. Invest in the games you want and display them on your shelf. At least they are yours so you can look at them and take them in your hands. That is actually something I find pleasure and value in.

The time has come for us to vote with our wallets. Overpaying borrowed digital items makes no sense. Physical PS games go down to a third of their price in matter of months. People need to be patient and buy a game at a time instead of hoarding worthless digital megabytes.

Sony with this price increase you should at least get the PS1/PS2 classics running on the PS3 running on the PS4/PS5 stores. There's been a big lack of communication on this.

Regardless I'm glad I'm not into subscriptions or paying for online on consoles.

I been buying games I really want from local stores that need the money not the big corps.

Didn't it only go up a little while ago? 🤔

With no new or improved features announced, it seems difficult to justify. I hope they are least going to make an effort to improve the quality of the games offered each month. They've got Generation Zero next month, a game which I bought a while back on Steam and is a buggy mess... even moreso on consoles, as far as I'm aware.

I stuck with Essential when they added the other tiers, and added 2 years to mine in June during the sale, so I'm good until September 2026. I'm scared to think how much it will cost then, and will probably let it lapse.

At this point, I wish they'd consider a budget level for just online play and cloud saves at, say, £20 per year. I only really bother with it for online play, and even that is rare; the 'free' games I rarely take and can easily do without.

I've been okay with the price increases to this point, because it still gave me value for money. This will tip it past my personal line in the sand, though.

@Czar_Khastik Yup, now a days I just buy everything I want when it goes on sale. For the $160 I would be spending on a year of PS+ Premium, I could buy a ton of games on sale. At $120 I was barely able to justify it as a way to check out a wide variety of games, but with this price increase it's like I can easily just buy whatever games I am truly interested in and forget the rest.

It's worth noting the monthly and quarterly prices are UNCHANGED (at least for US, which is the only one I looked at that closely). They've just made the annual cost a smaller discount than before - which is still better than the discount M$ doesn't offer for annual subscriptions of their service.

So you can pay for an annual now, or hope they have another sale before this kicks in (not impossible), or wait for the inevitable Black Friday sale in November which will probably bring the annual price back to what it is today as a discount.

I'll catch it on a discount maybe but no thank you. I'm not paying that asking price for Premium nor Extra. I'll try to play and finish whatever game on Premium that I want to play and let it lapse without renewing. I'll think about Essentials but I can't think of any game I play online anymore beside SF6 every once and a while and I don't need to that, im fine just playing offline. Don't play Battlefield anymore other than 4 and I haven't played that in a long time. So even Essential isn't worth it now(for me).

Technically you are getting value here so it's technically worth it but that's more so on whether you out paying for games to begin with. PlayStation wants to be full greed all while providing crumbs on whats on the timeline. PlayStation under Jim Ryan is a wannabe Apple without the premium products to be Apple.

Well this price increase is like a b*tch-slap in the face. I only have the essential because those free games were enough for me and because you need it to play online. I can imagine 20 more is a big deal for some.

friendly reminder, you are paying sony for the privilege of playing multiplayer. but most of the servers you are using are hosted and being paid for by the publishers (EA, Epic, Activision, Ubisoft)

also, sony is out of their minds if they think they can charge 150 euros for premium

This services (both plus ans pass) are not sustainable at this prices, subscription prices will keep raising until they are. People is spending less money on new games because they have monstrous backlogs anyway and they will rather wait foe games to show up on the services.

I know it's already been said likely dozens of times in the comments already, but this is a ridiculous increase. Even though it'd be unnecessary as PlayStation/Sony is rolling in the money from the PS5 and such, I could at least somewhat understand a small increase as pretty much everybody else is doing it. A $20, $35, and $40 increase across the board is just greedy. Also, having them increase just a week after the announcement is kind of a poor move.

I have Extra and I honestly have hardly used it other than to play Stray and Life is Strange 2. I will likely play Sea of Stars at some point too. That's on me as there's plenty of games to play on there, but I will only consider continuing my subscription if I can find a good deal. No way in hell I'm giving Sony $135 for a year of the service.

It wouldn't surprise me if nothing improves with it either.

Tbh i'm not that surprised. Everything is becoming more expensive. Didn't Disney also just increase they ad free sub with 20%? It sucks for sure. Gone are the days where you could subscribe to it all..

Those prices are absurd. $80 if I want to play multiplayer on Playstation now!

Haha, nope! I'll stick with Game Pass and NSO. The former I don't even need to pay for, and the latter, while feature-light, still gives me access to the core features I need for peanuts.

I got one more year of PS Plus. I have too many backlog games to complete. I think this may be my last year.... just sucks I will lose all the games I have from Essential

Console price increase, games up to £70, a shifting focus to MTX crap, and now this. This gen really is for the payers, huh?

RIP. Was a good run but not really

At that price, this is a supplement to buying games a la carte, not a compliment. Which is still fine if you don't care to own your games and/or are a PlayStation faithful that doesn't manage multiple hardware libraries simultaneously. But for those who do and DO, this service just lost all its appeal.

Honestly, Gamepass has as well with it's extra $2/month. I would say I was a believer in these services (despite PS+E/P always lacking on my eyes), but now I see them bleeding subscribers until Microsoft and Sony give up on the whole thing.

...Maybe that means Sony will bother to emulate PS3 hardware finally. How exciting.

@Bionic-Spencer Gamepass went up 2 dollars to $16.99a month last month. PS Plus is still cheaper for a year.

essentially (no pun intended), what has happened here is this: both, microsoft and sony both hit their ceiling for subscriber growth recently... subscriptions have stagnated and thus they have decided to keep growing their profits by price gouging their loyal customers. 5%, 10%, hell, a 15% increase would be somewhat reasonable IF sony was really going to provide us with at least one banger title per month that is less than 12 months old... unfortunately, that is usually NOT the case and i don't expect that to change now either. that said, we are looking at a 40% price hike to essential here in canada which i would say is unheard of in the subscription market. not even netflix has increased its pricing month over month by such a margin. this really is quite a crazy thing to behold.

i just made a list of all the ps+ games i have in my backlog. i will be completing as many as i can before my subscription expires as i don't see myself extending it (unless sony sweetens the service with better games or features but that would be expecting too much).

Bravo Jimbo, bravo.

I dropped the subscription not long ago. Price hike or no, I just didn't see any value in it, in all fairness.

I can't say this is helping any. People who are on the fence are probably having their minds made up right now.

The price is all wrong. A £20 increase is equivalent to approximately $26, but Sony is increasing the price $40.

Massive L. After my premium subscription runs out I may pay the $80 for Essential but even that is really pushing it. Hilarious that some people are defending this garbage, especially when Game Pass, which is a better value, isn't even really worth what MS charges. I try to be fair, so I'll wait to see what Sony does before passing full judgment, but reacting off what I've seen so far, I'm not confident. The current lineup for Essential is a complete and total joke. At the very least, give people a lineup that isn't garbage to try and justify the price hikes.

@Atreus97 Yeah, that is complete bullsh*t! There is the drip feed of ps1 'classics'. So many games that people can't re-download from their ps3 library (yeah it was a while ago so what!). So wack all around

@Squatcheemagoo
BS for sure. With these asinine price increases, especially the price of Premium I need to see, at the very least, one game from each system with every new update. I don't want to hear any excuses either. One PS1 game, one for PS2, 3 and PSP, each month. On top of that, they should all be available for individual purchase whether it's a first party game or not and, since Sony more than has the money, fix the putrid PS2 emulator and figure out a way to make PS3 games downloadable. When the price was lower, the laziness was easier to deal with, not anymore.

Wtf? I guess I won't subs to psplus anymore, $40 increase is just too much. If my country psplus price don't increase I guess I'll move my subs there. This suck.

Also this put extra and premium out of my price range, it's not worth it to rent games with price like that, I rather wait for a year then buy the games I like rather than buying a subs with price like this.

I just canceled my subscription. Goodbye PS Plus.

@AdamNovice You are insane my friend, "being rational" why isn't Sony being rational then?.

Seriously, i do hope you either work at sony or have some stocks in them because no, just no.

Would it have been too much trouble to also list the Euro price in the article?

I have set my ps5 to go ps+ essential when extra expires and I don't want to deal with the price increases on game pass so I will let it expire. It would suck too much to drop ps+ essential. I'm not doing two game subscriptions anymore.

Gaming is a s*** show nowadays, between Sony and Microsoft going this route about price increase (funny how Nintendo actually reduced the price in some places) and PC gaming price entry being such a disaster with insane prices for GPUs and CPUs (and with new gens having barely more power but more expensive too, thanks Nvidia).

This is sad, i get gaming is a luxury in the end but it shouldn't be Bvlgari kind of luxury.

Insane situation for people just wanting to have a bit of fun lol

I’m similar to a previous poster. I went premium for PS1/2 and PSP ports. (I can’t stream PS3 as my broadband is only 25Mbs). The number of PS1/2/PSP games has been woefully small.

I usually renew during sales about half the price. My gaming time is getting less and games getting way bigger so sometimes owning a copy is the cheaper route.

Can anyone tell me why that to play online for games I pay for I need a PS subscription and games that are free I don’t.

@Andyhunter132 Sorry? PS Plus Extra at it's current price is a great deal, I'm super happy with the service. I'd like to lock it in at that price, and when I need to resub do it when it's on sale.
Do you want me to leave the service or what?

Voice over man: "For the payers"

"enable us to continue bringing high-quality games and value-added benefits to your PlayStation Plus subscription service"

<looks at Essential downloadable games for this month and shakes head....>

I bet ShopTo will be selling out of their £50 PS Wallet gift cards any time now!

I'm on Extra until 4th Dec 2024 so we'll see what prices are after that. That's if I can be bothered with this New Fake PS bull.

The good news is they will lower the prices at some point...won't they?....

I'd love a proper article explaining why it is/isn't a scam for us to have to pay to play online (With no lower tier option without the 'free' monthly games).
Are you playing on PC? No charge. PS3? No charge. Playing F2P games? No charge.
We using dedicated servers or Peer to Peer? Is it Sony's servers we're even playing on? Nope, other publishers. Are the other publishers getting any of this money for maintenance or whatever?
They're making a hell of a lot of money from it that's for sure, if a customer has no interest in the free games how is that price justified?
And yet if I want to continue playing Street Fighter 6 online I have to pay.

@TheElectroFunky Funny, isn't it, That your very long diatribe didn't receive even 1 HEART. Not one. Talk about pissing in the wind. Listen, People have every right to complain, to protest, to discuss, or even whine about a company's service we collectively use and collectively feel is price gouging us. It's only through strength in numbers, online press, and feedback that this community is able to be heard by greedy corporations that have the gall to try and shake people down when inflation is at a 40 year high and that we collectively, minus a few oddballs, white knights, apologists and shills ( looks squarely at you ) voice our disdain and dissent. People must be VOCAL and they MUST BE LOUD.

It's still amazing value considering what they've added since launch (even this week a £30 very good day one game to the service). But the price rise in the US is certainly a bit naughty. Are people really paying full price for this though? Surely you buy on the frequent sales days. My premium was £60

If people panic and purchase additional year/s of subscription, PlayStation will have tied down thousands of customers to PS Plus and filled their bank up £££.
Even if the backlash does make PlayStation reverse/scrap the price increase they are winning either way.

NEW PRICE BREAKDOWN (UK)

• Essential £59.99 = £5.00 per month
• Extra £99.99 = £8.33 per month
• Premium £119.99 = £10.00 per month

OLD PRICE BREAKDOWN (UK)

• Essential £49.99 = £4.17 per month
• Extra £83.99 = £7.00 per month
• Premium £99.99 = £8.33 per month

Looks like alot of people may even leave ps and turn back to xbox with this crap they are doing its unreal the prices they expect us pay for anything these days

The only way they could possibly justify such a huge increase, is by putting first party exclusives and forking out to deliver us some third party titles on PS Plus Extra on release day, like gamepass.

My subscription doesn't run out until next September. I might stack another year on top before the price increase, but I'm becoming increasingly disillusioned by PlayStation this generation. They have become complacent and greedy. Jim Ryan needs to go!!

As if i needed more confirmation selling my ps5 was the right choice.

Been a ps user since 1997 (ff 7!l) and have never been more let down by a console than the ps5.

@Moonvalley_PS Seriously considering selling my PS5 - or I might pack it back into its box and shove it in the loft with a note saying "Do not open until PS are decent again".

I've got a PS4 Pro with an SSD so I'm good for 95% of all PS releases due this year and next. And I don't have to put up with the dullest, most miserable UI or put up with music for funerals dirge in the background.

@sanderson72

And the PS4 controller is WAY better than the dual sense...IMO (not trolling mods- i hate the ps5 controller)

@Yinx Even the american IGN posts euro prices, here nothing...

@KoldFire Oh please, if you think PlayStation reads comments on this website and listens, especially to someone like you who sounds like a right wing American in text, no thank you.

I’m not a shill, or an apologist, or any other trendy word that’s become ever popular because a con artist America voted for brought it back into vernacular with those of a statistically lower IQ.

We are perfectly fine and able to have differing opinions, I’m unsure why you’d think it necessary to then go about insulting someone just because they understand inflation is a part of the society we live in.

Inflation isn’t new, my parents paid far less for a home, far less for food, far less for everything than I did, by a lot. That’s going back decades, go back further and their parents paid even less, when accounting for inflationary values.

You act like it’s new, it’s not even remotely new.

As a fun fact for you, seeing as you’re clearly reactionary, here’s something to react to;

Inflation has been in existence since before the little white men went over to the land you sit on and called it their own. In fact one of the things your ancestors tried to escape is not only religious preaching but also financial control.

Now, fast forward through a few literal white washings of history up until your present day, and everyone, including new America has inflation still.

It isn’t just corporations by the way, mum (mom) and pop stores are also doing it, otherwise if their suppliers inflate prices, society as a whole inflated prices but they didn’t, they’d also crumble.

Of course, all of this is rather basic, but someone who uses the type of vernacular you do usually is in my experience you see.

I don’t like inflation, I don’t like PS Plus payment rises, obviously, I mean that’s obvious right? No one likes to pay more, even people who can pay far more want to always pay less.

So no, I’m not for inflation, I just recognise financially, it’s part of what societies go through like a rubber band.

And no, please, from someone who used to live in America, please for the love of God, or guns, whatever you worship.

The last thing anyone should be quite literally capitalising and shouting is to be “VOCAL” and “LOUD”.

Seriously, Americans may struggle at many things, like we all do, but being loud and vocal are not those things.

Now if you’re quite done getting on your high horse, I'd like to get on with my day.

And just so we are clear, I don’t do anything for likes, otherwise I would have pandered to a point of view that garnered them.

Again, rather simple really. Hope you understand.

@Moonvalley_PS You'll get no argument from me on that! The nasty sharp edges and the generally tacky plastics just feel cheap and the whole thing is too bulky. And what's with the sawn of ends to the hand grips?
The DS4 just fits your hand and doesn't get tiring after a prolonged session. It's probably because it's from a time when Sony gave a **** rather than being ****.

@kirkn thanks for the breakdown buddy, I’ve noticed a lot of articles not really markets including us in the UK. My partners mum was asking for quite literally this. Haha. So thank you.

well... time to cut that subscription.
The extras were amazing but after a year i feel like i tried those i judged worthy. Some of the monthly psplus games are fine, but most of them i wouldnt even have bought. And most of them i never finish anyway.
For the rare occasions a psplus game is one i would have bought, its not worth it for the new psplus price. ill just buy the games and they'll be mine and not stuck into a subscription account.

@TheElectroFunky What? This must be what's called a strawman argument. Like what? Why are you speaking on anyone's culture, nationality, ethnicity, or background? We're talking about a company substantially raising prices. Not pilgrims, pride, or maritime flags. No clue where you're going with that left field diatribe. You have absolutely zero idea of what my ethnic or racial background is. Zero. It would be one thing if you actually had a window into my world but you're metaphorically standing at a brick wall imagining what's happening on the other side, making up crazy stories and speaking on things which are not only ridiculously nonsensical and irrelevant but absurdly imaginary and have zero bearing on the topic at hand; Corp price gouging, people having a right to be upset, or the simps ( again, looking right at you ) who whiteknight and sealion for companies, organizations, or their online crushes and obsessions. I'm not going to make a bulletin list of all the wackadoodle statements you made but they glaringly say much more about yourself than anyone or anything else. I hope you have some real life friends to speak with that are genuinely concerned with your emotional state and well being because you apparently have some deep rooted unresolved issues and life grievances that i'm neither willing or able to indulge or understand. Thank you for taking the time to share your far out thoughts. Now, please be kind and rewind. 😁 You are Dismissed.

Thanks and goodbye, not worth it.

I think I'm just going to downgrade to the basic version, and that's just so I can play online with my friends.

I've always just paid monthly, never understood the appeal of yearly subscriptions. I'd rather pay more overall but not have a substantial outlay ever while also having that option whenever I want to take a month or two off.

Annual subscriptions are cheaper but the piece of mind of never having to think about it while also having the option to cancel whenever I want is just better imo. Also if something ever comes up that would mean I couldn't play or take advantage of Plus then I'm not having months of membership going down the drain.

Seriously more people should go monthly.

That’s a crazy hike and it’s already $70 yearly for Canadians. This makes it nearly $100 for the basic sub. Unless they plan on giving like 10 games a month than maybe but as is, it’s not worth at all.