Reaction: Has Sony Put Together the Worst PS Plus Month Ever?

Canadian here, so knowing that the price increase will be even worse here I hate to say it cause I've been subscribed since the beginning but that is way to big an increase overnight and I will not be re-upping.

EDIT: For Canadians (rough prices)
Essential: $122
Extra: $205
PS Premium for one year will now cost $250 Canadian. That is BRUTAL!!

The fact the Saints Row Reboot is considered the best game of the month, just goes to show how abysmal this month is.

Easily the worst psplus ever. Horrible games and a price increases on psplus also.i got a huge backlog of games which i got.but those games are 🗑 trash.word up son

I'm actually looking forward to trying out Saints Row. No way would I have bought it but it could be a fun pissabout.

I luckily only go monthly which yes adds up to more over time but at least I’m only spending 17.99 a month and if there’s a month I don’t like I just let that month go

They better start putting out some good additions each month, no more 3 games on premium a month. They need to justify their price increase, now we know why they don't report subscription numbers anymore.

Yeah, this is easily the worst look PS Plus has had in years, and Sony did this to themselves with zero self-awareness and shame.

No last month was worse imo, terrible indie game, dreams that's servers are closing in october and some golf game. . On terms of subscription increasing I expected it. I'm very good at predictions especially with inflation and interest rates especially in the uk. I bought a years essential ps+ last new years and I'll probably get another year in around black friday/cyber Monday

The price increase is only for the 12 month subscription packages, the 1 month and 3 month subs are staying the same price. But even still the new 12 month price is still cheaper than paying for the 1 month sub 12 times a year so I don't see the big deal, you're still saving money, you're not paying more, you're just saving less but saving nonetheless.

In terms of the monthly games, I agree it's a very poor month, hopefully the next Extra additions make up for it.

To be fair, when team green upped their prices, they somehow managed to make it an amazing move that benefits everybody to have ever lived! So maybe we should just double their price, because it's a good thing, right?

So PS Plus has always been very average at best and now they’ve increased the prices, might as well all jump ship and head over to XBOX Game Pass. Now I’m new to XBOX game pass, but I know PS Plus, Xbox game Pass wins always for me. And yes agree a very poor offering of games for those who part ways with their well earned cash.

@KaijuKaiser PS+ extra rarely has any Day1 releases and never actual fullprice Games like Helldivers 2 will be

Why can’t PlayStation rival XBOX game pass and try and better it instead of same old rubbish. Three tiers, two of which no one is gonna bother unless you’re rich. XBOX game pass works, and I love it, but this and the new pricing, it’s a no from me. Wait for offers.

Xbox raised they’re prices too. Gaming is a expensive luxury hobby if you can’t afford it that’s a you problem.

@Dragon83 Dreams Servers aren't closing lol

Month can still be saved if Extra lineup is good but it'll be the worst if Extra is as as bad as essential

I think a lot of people will be quite chuffed to get Saints Row "for free" as it's relatively recent and has been patched a few times

The multiplayer games, wouldnt have played them regardless so doesnt bother me if its good or bad

@BeerIsAwesome Gamepass Ultimate didnt increase its cost by 30% tho and offers way more at an cheaper price

Can't remember the last PS+ month where I didn't already have it or wouldn't play it if they paid me.

I like overpaying things that I don't own so this is a great month for me.

The discourse around PS Plus has irritated me since day one honestly. I've always thought that the value proposition is good, even if the games are not for me. Guess I'm just one of three people total. Saints Row will probably actually be a game I'll look into which I rarely do.
Edit: No, I'm not talking about the price increase here. No one likes those.

@andy24king Because they're not a trillion dollar company who can bankroll their subscription service with profits derived from outside their gaming division.

PS Plus Extra is the only good tier at this point. Base tier for Plus monthly games can be a mix of good to absolutely poor. Plus Premium has been underwhelming with content since launch, with The Legend of Dragoon and Wild Arms 2 being the few things interesting. Plus Extra is consistently offering great games monthly and the day one releases have been improving heavily for indie games which imo are a great choice for these kind of services. If Sony wants to charge more for their services then they need to justify it with better content and features

I'll give the patched up Saints Row a chance, but this is clearly a pretty poor month for essential.

In the last 3 years, I’ve not paid more than £24.99 for an annual subscription. It’s usually 50% off just after Christmas (26th/27th December). If it’s any higher than that I’ll just let it slide, I don’t use online features

save your £60 and get BG3 instead. you will thank me for it.

Definitely not the greatest essential month, but I’m still holding out hope that the Extra and Premium addition announcements later this month will turn the month around.

The price hike makes it the worst PS+ month and I wouldn't be surprised if in 2 weeks Microsoft follows up this by getting rid of the 3:2 conversation that's currently present for upgrading Gold to Ultimate when Gold is replaced by Game Pass Core.

They're taking away the 12-month discount without raising the 1-month and 3-month price... they're gouging the most loyal customers, which makes it seem like they're very nervous about revenue for 2024. I hope I'm wrong, but it suggests they don't have much to show besides the slop presented for the disastrous May showcase.

Sounds like PS+ Premium is going to be a one year experience for me, while I think it's been nice, it's not $160 nice. At that price I might as well just put the money I would be spending on a subscription towards games I will actually own.

Sounds like I won't bother with PS+ anymore either, I simply don't play games online enough to justify spending $80 on it, and the PS+ catalog, as good as it might be, isn't something I need. I can easily live without it, and these price increases are making me choose the "live without it" option.

I'm out. It's not worth it to me anymore. Sony makes around two games a year, they put out games like this on PS+, and then hike the price. I have other games I'd rather pay than to keep paying Sony to think that this is how they treat their customers. At this rate, there is no chance I'm buying Sony's next console.

It's amazing how these companies make all the wrong decisions during a generation (PS3) then fix them the next (PS4) only to do it again the following one (PS5). The only reason there console sales are high is off the momentum of the PS4.

Ive been on Premium and been supportive since the beginning. Now I'm seriously considering just dropping to Essential or Extra when mine lapses. With them only offering three games a month (No 3rd party games even with trophy support) and stupid game trials at this price it doesn't feel worth it anymore. I'll just start buying the classic games I want.

@MagisterMagi they are ending support from Friday so eventually will be. It's on the official website

Damn, this is pretty crappy.

I was going to drop to Essentials when my current Premium is up but £60 is pretty poor considering I got a year of Gamepass for £80 last Black Friday.

I wont be subscribing when it runs out now.

80 bucks now. Let mine lapse next week, won't renew. Not worth it for me, don't play enough and little that interests me from a MP perspective. Sony are becoming a little arrogant & lackluster lately since they got in the lead

Yes it’s a poor month.

But at the end of the day, one of the months has to be the worst one.

All abit OTT with this article.

I'm paid up until 4/24. I won't be renewing. Paying $80 a year to play online is not worth it for me. I'm not happy with the direction Playstation has been heading in this generation.

Mine is locked til June 2025. By then i may even be out of multiplayer gaming for essential. Classic titles are a drip feed and i’d rather just buy the ones i’m interested in a la carte

@Dragon83 Well eventually every Game that has online will. Still not in October like you said

@Ken_Kaniff yeah premium price hike is insane with how little they have added and how slow it is. If there is a game i’m interested in i generally just buy it outright anyway like legend of dragoon which was previously bought and on account.

They're gonna be in for a shock when they see that PS+ count drop. Wait who am I kidding, look at the poll. Most of y'all gonna buy it anyway

Extra is still worth every penny the amount of games I've enjoyed has paid for itself
And yes it looks bad. But if you break it down. Its still only 8.33 a month.

Every streaming service has gone up. For top quality netflix is now 15.99 for 4k.
Thats alot to pay out and thats a month.

You would have thought that with the price increase that they would do a brilliant month just to sweeten the price increase, they could have spread those games out over the next 3 months one per month to make it less noticeable

They're barely releasing any games, nothing announced for the future? Is this gouging to make up for their piss poor roster consisting of... just spiderman? Been tempted to move back to pc for a while. Moving closer and closer every day. You double the cost of the console during its lifespan with these "online" charges. Stick it.

@theMEGAniggle extra worth every penny. It works out at 8.33 a month. Thats alot less than an netflix subscription

Premium has never been worth it. Your best paying premium when your time is nearly up and upgrade for a small amount and smash the certain games you want to play.

I think Sony makes it an easier choice as they have started porting their “console exclusive” titles to PC - also, for FF 14 players, you are being double gouged as you need a ps+ account to play along with Squeenix’s sub costs - it’s insanity and a primary reason I don’t play online games on the console anymore.

@Sequel its 8.33 a month for extra. Not really doubling and extra is where its at.

Who ever is buying premium, that's never been worth it.

I dont really see how or why putting it up 20 for a subscription which lacks any form of consistency or quality.

Extra is the premium service.

@4kgk2 Blessedly, I can afford the increased prices if I want it. The question for me-and I suspect others-is whether Plus is worth what we are now expected to pay for it. Sony has raised prices significantly without telling us what new benefits we can expect, if any.

That seems like a problem for Sony, not me.

Yes it’s the worst month, and yes I’ll let my sub lapse, but the two have nothing to do with each other. Letting it lapse is not even about the price, which is still very fair (£16 extra for a year is nothing), I was going to do it anyway. I spend most of my time in VR these days, and have limited time anyway to get value from a subscription service.

Nope, and you’re a clown if you think so.

@TandyMiller lol you never needed a PS+ Sub to play XIV. Not sure where you read that

I know this is a click bait headline but Saint's Row is a big game for Essential. This is exactly the kind of game I want out of this tier.

Beyond that you cannot judge PS Plus' September until the Extra and Premium games are revealed.

I think the price hike socks, but I also think it's silly to expect a corporation to actually add something at a price hike. Everyone is trying to be Netflix for games and Netflix sure as hell doesn't give you anything new or better when they raise prices.

Worse PS Plus month ever and in the same blog post Sony saying there increasing the price of PS Plus in order to keep bringing quality games to PS Plus...

@Ludacritz Fellow Canadian here. I'll also be letting it lapse. I'm certain I could buy the 2 or 3 games a year on PS+ that are worth playing and pay less than half the new subscription price.

@Bez87 I don't want "extra". I don't play many games. I just want online play, that's it. Can't they just sell me that? How much does it cost to run the severs? 80 bucks per person year? How much is going to actually running the online infrastructure? I'd love to see a gaming outlet (not saying push square, maybe a larger one) do a journalist piece on that. Breakdown the costs. I'm not interested in more games.. but now I have to pay getting on for a hundred bucks to do so. No wonder sony are making 60% of their upcoming titles live service. They'd better be bloody amazing for this price. I'll stick to pc where they can somehow afford to give you online play without charging an arm and a leg.

@Ludacritz same here. It feels like premium is falsely advertised as is anyway, and extra sees games rotating out too quickly. They clearly say that all games over 40 USD must have a trial within a few months but then they don’t ever enforce it leading to virtually no trials of any worth. Extra mainly consists of games that have previously been given out before the Plus changes rolled out, and thus punish longtime subscribers. I’m dropping two tiers to essential and am now planning to grab an Xbox and enjoy Starfield, watching cautiously as to whether I should jump ship or not. Sony is making a lot of bad decisions lately, and it’s worrisome.

Yh it's a bad Essential month overall but only because I've already played Saints Row. The price increase has made this Essential month far worse. Fortunately my 12 month £99.99 Premium renewed only a week ago. YES I WILL DEFINITELY BE RENEWING MY 12 month £120 Premium on August 2024 because there's still so many games that are on Extra or will be coming to Extra that I simply haven't played yet. The amount of money I will be saving yearly by relying on Extra to play many games is still very huge when comparing to buying the games separately new, used, physically or digital. Should go without saying, a game like Spiderman 2 is a day one for me regardless of its £69.99 price tag and will be worth every penny

Well xbox game pass ultimate is $15 a month means it’s $180 plus tax while ps plus premium is $160 plus tax so 🤷‍♂️

Essential is €1 per month extra, extra is €2 per mont extra, and premium +/-€2,60 per month extra...EVERYTHING is getting more and more expensive. Hell my car Costs €180 to fill her up. groceries on average €120 per week. I think I can survive these amounts. Everyone pretends the world is ending, but Sony has to go through the current inflation and I think the days are still not too bad. Netflix is more expensive every year.

@Sequel
You're talking about 6.60 a month to play online and you get 3 games "on top" as well. all those streaming services are more expensive per month. Don't exaggerate so much. Sony is also a company that has to earn. life costs money. We have to live with that or do nothing at all.

Yap what a weak month.
Besides, with the amount of trash, I mean REALLY BAD, classic selection they have been putting on the Premium service, this price increase is a huge slap in the face. This price is only justified with more day one games and please for the love of God, better classic games

I enjoyed Saints Row. It was a fun game. It’s not the best game ever but it’s far from being the worst.

I don’t have PS+ anymore but the price increases mean I’ll be less likely to sign up for the odd month here and there as I do now.

@MagisterMagi you know , you’re right! I had to double check and it seems your squeenix account links to psn without needing +- thanks for catching that still not enamoured with Sony these days but it’s an expense we all have to weigh

It's a pretty bad look no doubt. I get that the economy is in a rough place but I think they went just a tad too high with the price hike. $10 more for essential would have been a bit more reasonable.

All that said it's still a full year of monthly games for about the price of one full game and I do play SF6 online very often so I'll still be an essential member. There's basically no chance I'm going to become an extra or premium member now though.

@TommyNL No exaggeration here. Just not seeing the value in a 30% increase to read some messages in elden ring & a few pvp goes on armored core. 30% is a monster increase, you can justify it by saying shareholders need more profit but I disagree. Its greed - and its rampant. Simple as that. I'm out.

No, Generation Zero is fantastic. Don't sleep on it.

I'm currently on ps extra and essential doing the subs every 3 months and while the increase isn't gd news I'm still very pleased this year so far with aload of great games on essential and extra, not such a gd month this month but not every month is gonna be a banger,I'll see what happens in the near future with games coming to these tiers but pretty happy overall still finding it great value for me at least ,is bit shame for price increases but think sony will just bring more and better games moving forward, we will see

Regarding the price hike, I often think what’s blown up here doesn’t really represent the general mass players views. Looks like via social media that this decision will haunt Sony big time.

Either a u-turn, distraction of showcase or they announce the clear reasons why the increase (they’ve done an emulator or about to introduce first day releases) is coming round the corner.

When Xbox live gold was still a thing we would have killed for a title as good as saints row 2023.

Does PlayStation have to spend more money per game to be on PS Plus than Xbox does for GamePass because PS has almost double the install base and more Plus Subs. Pretty sure I read about it last year but I can't remember where, should possibly be somewhere on the internet about it unless I've got it mixed up with something else. Not specifically talking about Xbox GamePass 3rd party day ones like Wu Long or Lies of P, those will naturally be very expensive to be day one, I mean the ones that come to subscriptions about a year after release. It will be really interesting to know how much both PS and Xbox have had to pay for Sea of Stars given how it's day one on both, unfortunately we'll most likely never know

Yeah, I'm sitting here trying to explain this away with a typical fanboi attitude but I just can't this time. I am shocked, disappointed, and angry.

Just came from the PlayStation Blog and oh boy is it going off... I'm surprised they have left comments turned on for this post. 342 comments as of this right now

Edit: Strangely this works out for all tiers as a 34% +/- increase. I pay 114 CAD right now for PS+Extra so adding 34% to that my new price should be 152.76 so probably 154.00. That is still 40 more bucks a year but...I have paid more for less. Still, nothing justifies the increase and I am still angry but I probably won't unsub over 40 bucks

The worst thing about this is that no matter how huge the public outcry is, corporate will continue business as usual.

Lots of massive overreaction in the comments I see. Everything single thing in my life has gone up, this doesn't surprise me at all. Lots of vocal people here, but it will be interesting to see what their subscription numbers are in a years time. My guess is not much different, the average consumer will just pay it anyway.
As to the monthly games, I know saints row was not critically well received, but it still was a full priced game that came out last year.
And I know I didn't play Generation Zero at launch but for PS to give it a 3 and call it dreadful is just laughable. Especially after seeing some of the high scores they have given out to some very mediocre games. The build I played was bug free, ran great, massive open world, really challenging machines to fight and it had great weather effects. And in coop was brilliant fun.
No idea about the third game, but a pretty good month in my eyes.

I'm actually kind of interested in finally checking out whatever mess of game Saint's Row turned out to be so no, I am happy enough with this

@MagisterMagi There is no comparison between an annual Plus and Game Pass subscription, as annual Game Pass subscriptions no longer exist. I have just done the maths, and the cost of 12 months of Game Pass Ultimate put together is £155 and change. That is marginally less number-wise than $159 for an annual Plus sub. The only difference is that I've done that in two different currencies, and in reality Plus AND EA Play are still cheaper than Game Pass Ultimate, which contains EA Play.

One must point out that the monthly and quarterly sub prices haven't changed, only the annual.

@UltimateOtaku91 No, you are paying more. How can you say this isn't a price increase when they increased the price?

There is a term called 'float; which is important to banking and things like yearly subs. This is similar. When you pay for a full year at a price higher than a monthly sub you are essentially giving the company a loan. In this case (unlike a bank) they are getting it for free - no interest.

You pay more for a month by month because they don't get all of your your money now. Money they can do anything with. Invest it in capital. Invest it in bitcoin. Put it on financials to their favor, etc.

You are not saving less. You are giving Sony a larger interest free loan on future services.

It's a sad indictment of the service that I had to really think about that question.

PS Extra was genuinely building up to be a real Game Pass competitor. Cheaper, solid shuffling of games and the odd day 1 release. With this (significant) price increase all that goodwill and foundation work has gone out of the window. Premium was always a disaster, but the new cost of PS Extra had gone from being a gaming 'no brainer' to a 'no thanks'

Generation zero is not a bad game nowadays

My issue is how large of a price hike it is. I’m in the US and a 35% increase at one time is ludicrous. Honestly was shocked when I saw how dramatic it was.

I wish they told us why there's an increase other than vague talk. Is stuff like Stellar Blade or Rise of the Ronin day one on the service? Fair tradeoff. Or all those PS1/PS2 classics just sitting there like the original RE games or the Fatal Frame trilogy? Or better selection for the classics catalog? Instead we get a "it'll get better bro, trust us"

Saints Row isn't great but its a good Plus game especially as many of the issues are fixed now, fsr from the worst month. Price hike is disgusting though.

Playstation Plus Extra is still a really good deal for someone like me. I rarely care about getting games day one so it keeps me quite occupied gaming-wise year round. And the price increase wont hit for a long time, I just extended my sub for a year and got a 30% discount. It cost 520dkk which is the same as buying one AAA game.

Price rises always suck, but I've got a lot more than £100 of value out of Extra in the past 12 months, so I'll stay subscribed when that's the price.

I just bought some clamps and some wood glue today and it set me back £53 - a year ago it would have been more like £45 because that's how prices are going everywhere. Games are about the best bang for your buck out of pretty much any hobby out there

I only want to play online and they know there are many like me that they can screw over with these price increases.

@Rmg0731 Yea if they would have atleast had an update on what was going to change because the price increase it wouldn't have been as bad. But this tells me nothing will change they just want more money. That's fine though, I'll speak with my wallet since they don't like to listen to our words.

@OmegaStriver I'm one. Zero interest in random games, just want online.. and don't use it much. Now it's 80bucks for the pleasure. I'd love to see a barebones online only tier.. but then that might give the game away that they are massively overcharging for some online upkeep & bundling you with things you don't need to inflate the cost. It's a racket.

"but you can't simply come out and say "give us more money" without a reason"

Pretty much what happened 🤷

"We have improved absolutely nothing and will not be adding anything new but regardless we want more moneys!!"

@Dragon83 - “terrible indie game”!?! Have you even played Death’s Door? It’s bloody fantastic. Only reason last month was such a bummer for me was cos I’d already played that great game!

@KaijuKaiser hey man idk about your reading comprehension. I literally said most of y'all will buy it anyway. Good day 🫡

I don't eat out everyday either

I still use only Plus Essential and honestly, I don't know when the last time was, that I played a PS Plus game.
I'm using it for Online Play and that's not counting many games. It's Call of Duty, Tekken and maybe King of Fighters 15. All games which I could also get on XBox.
I would really prefer a model, where I only get Online Gaming. Best would be for free, like on PC.

I'll stay with my extra sub. Since i went up the tier to extra i've only bought games that i really want and the cost of extra equates to 2 games a year and for what i personally get from the extra tier its more than worth it to me. I know there are going to be people that can't wait to tell me i'm a sony stool and i'll buy into everything and i'm part of the problem blah,blah,blah but i could care less so save your breath. It all boils down to personal preference and i'm not really happy about the slight increase but i get more than my moneys worth and a lot of fun from my sub. At the end of the day sony dont have to give a reason to anybody and if you dont like it stop buying their products and supporting them as it really is as simple as that.

@Bez87 I agree but prices will just go up and up. Next thing you know after it's gone from £50 to £60 they're increasing it to £70. I don't care about value for money, tell me what about getting 3 free games a month plus multiplayer access justifies that increase

Four reasons why I'm not bothered by the price hike:

1. If you pay monthly or quarterly, there is no price increase. You'll still pay what you've been paying (at least in the US, correct me if that's not true for all regions).

2. My subscription has 18 months left on it, I'm not that bothered. It has that much on it because....

3. Don't pay full price for an annual subscription, when 1-2x a year they offer sales that offer solid discounts on annual subscriptions. Those discounts likely won't be as low as before, but they're still solid, especially compared to...

4. Their competitor, M$, offers no annual discounts at all and rarely offers any deal on their competing plan.

As for this month's titles - I'll give the updated Saint's Row a kick in the tires to see if they've fixed it enough to be as fun as any earlier entries. It's worth a shot, given how much I loved some previous entries. If I don't like it, I've got lots of other stuff to play, largely thanks to Plus.

Since I buy every game I find interesting day one (Alan wake, spider man ect), for me ps plus is mainly just for the multiplayer. But there are many games I want to try but would never spend a penny on them. Since I do not have a backlog to finish I will give them a go but I'm pretty sure these playruns will be quite short ones. Generation zero is just looks so bad that I must punish myself with playing it half an hour.

I hope they use the cash flow they get from increasing the prices to get bigger titles for Extra and maybe Day 1 releases more often. If that's the real reason then I'm totally behind it, even if it's a major increase.

No its not the worst month and this is hyperbole. In the dying days of PS3, and when Sony gave no cares about Vita, and the PS4 was still young we saw some horrific months - sometimes for consecutive months at a time. At least in Saints Row there is a potentially passable title.

With that said, its a bad look on a day when they are yet again nickel and diming consumers. Its not a coincidence the line up is poor at the same time they put out a statement claiming that they need to increase costs in order to subsidise quality of games.

This was always going to be an issue with Sony fragmenting the Plus community with 3 different tiers. Im not best pleased about it as i have no intention of upgrading from the essential tier given i always have a huge backlog of titles to play, without adding to that with ps plus extra, yet it feels like i am having to subsidise those higher tiers.

Im not surprised at all to see them try it on though, particularly since stats show subscriber numbers on plus and game pass are falling off a cliff. Its a difficult balance to make, but increasing prices by 20% is obscene and months like this wont have people queuing up to resubscribe

This is as dumb a move as a software company making its own console.

I miss the days we used to pay £40 for this…

I’m done. Going PC and Nintendo after this nonsense. There literally is no reason to continue investing in the PS ecosystem.

Once my subscription is finished, I'm not renewing it. The games are very rarely any good and I never play multiplayer games anymore and the ones I do play, you don't need a subscription for.

I think I'm going to end my Premium tier subscription. I barely use it and Sony has been very slow in adding classic games to the service. I'll go back to extra for free games and online, but that's all.

Well, this forces me to pay monthly instead of yearly now. Those new emulators better be up and ready to go to excuse this increase in price for Premium tier.

What are you going on about? Generation Zero is a really good game, but now because of your bad scoring everyone who hasn’t played it has the opinion that it’s not worth playing…

…to anyone reading this, grab a friend or two and give Generation Zero a shot. It’s a beautiful game with fun gameplay and bucket loads of atmosphere.

They can 🤬 all the way off with $159. I’m canceling right now! That’s a huge increase!

@KaijuKaiser Serious question but do you work for Sony? Please tell me you're not doing all this damage control for free? 😐

$80 for the privilege of going online is fine to you!? Of course it is they can charge $1000 your response would be the same and the Sony boot would still be nice and clean

@Sequel I am going to move to PC next generation.

Remember, it's not need. It's greed! The Jim Ryan effect. All while showing up with a crap showcase that provided crumbs after skipping a year . Been singing it for years, but Jim and Hermen are the worst thing to ever happen to PlayStation.

@KaijuKaiser My goodness. Do Sony's boots really taste that good?

It's not about the games, it's about their absolute lack of respect for their players.

This trend of Sony pushing the image of Playstation being the most distinguished and boutique console, the once and future God-King of all that is gaming, and pricing things according to how far Jim Ryan's head is up ass has completely soured me on the brand.

He wants them to be the Apple of gaming, that's fine...they have the brand recognition and market lead to do that, but I ain't sticking around for it.

I've bought and (mostly) enjoyed all four previous PlayStation consoles, but Sony's greed has made them genuinely dead to me this generation. There's no chance I'm buying a PayStation 5.

I could see why essential and even extra tier members might stay put.

A more interesting poll would be how many of us premium subscribers plan to stay at this tier. I know I won’t.

@GeneJacket agree, Sony applefying PlayStation just shows how out of touch they are. I'm sure someone will pull numbers and be like, hey they're making so much money, I know, but will it last? The price hike, playstation portal, there lame ps Premium cloud gaming offering. I haven't been into pc gaming for 20 years, but the steam deck and PlayStation inflexibility (home console only, pricing etc) has gotten me back there.

People will be playing BG3 or Starfield and Sony know it.

I don't care. These services are robbery to begin with and why i don't pay for them.
I play online on the PC for free. I am yet to understand why i have to pay for console internet play. I already pay for an internet connection.
So... price increase? Not my problem. You're doing it to yourselves and they will keep taking advantage. 🤷

Increasing its prices really baffles me. There is data and articles stating that subscriptions have peaked already, they arent going up anymore, why not leave the prices as they were or, I dont know, lower them a bit?

Generation I think is worth it (I don't care what reviewers say it's not like modern ones are appealing to me anyway so eh).

Saints Row while a fair offer feels like 2042, a desperation of players even if yes an open world vs a multiplayer required shooter not the same basis but whatever.

In terms of premium/deluxe the pricing I don't know. Sony has put effort in with their classics, third parties aren't as much budging due to licensing, source code and just not caring in the slightest so that's a problem.

So the price increase of around the same for PS+ Extra of games, prices go up because reasons of costs right now for things, subscription services have the user numbers for sure or just executives or whatever other factors to point at.

Even then Essentials customers just play online the games are a bonus. Extra/Premium are what they are at the end of the day.

I myself have never used the service and don't plan to. I can from a family member but there isn't a single game I 'have' to use the service for. Even then it's for premium/deluxe not extra games.

Like I got Disgaea 5 (is on Extra tier) for cheap physical, why would I pay a subscription to play it when I can play it on and off whenever I want on disk.

Any I would have I already own. Ridge Racers 2 PSP yeah got it years ago and almost beat it. I haven't played all of Sony's old games but I am making my way through them for PS3 like did MotorStorm got all PS3 entries I want and even then PS Classic has Syphon Filter 1 and Twisted Metal 1 or Kurashi/Intelligent Cube so I'm kind of good as well as Destruction Derby.

WipEout (music license, if other advertising them those too) won't ever come to the services (Rush on mobile isn't worth it even as a management game not interested compared to GT B Spec) so get a web browser and play PS1 games that way if you want on your console I guess. XD

Otherwise yes second hand market or emulation other ways. Even then WipEout collection is great value and can get Pulse on Vita still, thing is got it on PSP physical years ago.

But for the top tier I think some games are worth it, others not so much and third parties are holding PS+ Deluxe/Premium back from being what it can be.

I don't think Xbox BC is the best it offers lot of the wanted games but for niche games while it has some so many companies don't exist anymore (at least XBLA and Indie Triple pack disks work which is awesome), like 51 is nothing compared to the 501 on 360 and if that goes down after the 2024 360 store closure then well that BC is gone it's internet based.

Glad I can play some racing games that are like PGR1&2 on 360 or Grid 2 (360 game) on Xbox One.

But games people don't care about as highly get left behind and yet collectors go for or emulate because that's all we can do is access them via other means because companies, can't due to source code or won't bother to offer them and renew licenses/offer them at all on services if they are still owned licenses then public domain/ignored.

I question if Activision even gives us Pitfall Lost Expedition an Xbox OG (or the PS2 for PS+, GameCube/Wii version for NSO) game to backwards compatibility like Bethesda did with theirs get enhancements or we got the older Doom games by outside studios.

There is a reason many of us have other PS3s for PS3 games or classics bought on there (I don't but many people do of course).

@EMQZ Because I think it seems to be aimed at the person who is already subscribed too. So even if they don't make any significant bump in subscriptions, they'll still bring in more money from a renew because they jacked up the prices. That unless they start losing a lot more subs that aren't willing to re-sub.

It's just such an odd choice. If you're going to bump the price up by $40, I would think that you would announce games that would make people go, "Oh that's amazing! I don't want to miss that!" as opposed to, "Oof those are bad games, I can skip this month... You know what? Maybe I can skip PS Plus Essential/Extra/Premium in general"

@EMQZ Money. Now that some services have consolidated and/or have cornered the market, they're going to push and see how far they can go. Netflix raised their prices and forced people to get their own accounts, other streaming services are gonna follow suit, and now Sony's tossing its hat in the ring.

The standard PS 3 free monthly games are generally pretty *****, they have been for years. I only kept my subscription for the cloud saves. So not sure why this month there’s a big fuss.
Frankly ‘saints row’ is the first game in months I actually fancy playing, it’ll be a bargain bin fun time.

The next tier up is decent, the price hike sucks, but for £60-80 I have access to a number of games I’d like to play for a year, so again, not bad.

That said, PS+ extra needs more than one free decent game every 5 months to justify its price.

Absolute rip off. Never download the games anyway - other than moving out 2 - probably making money back for the stupid portable machine.

Put together with the absurd price increases of the PS+ 12 month prices, they are on the perfect track to alienate as many customers as possible...

Sure this is the bad month so far for 2023

@Ludacritz fellow canadian here. i believe the new $80USD price for essential translates to roughly $110CAD. some pricing is not 1:1 for our market though so i could see it being listed at $100CAD when it is updated. that is still a 40% price hike which is completely unheard of in the subscription marketplate. absurd is the word.

EDIT: i forgot that there is tax on this stuff. looks like you took that into account so everything adds up. damn haha.

@husker42c I couldn't agree more. Sony is headed in a direction I cannot get behind. Live-service games, stupid high pricing tiers, over-priced peripherals, and only around two game releases per year. The PS4 felt like Sony had caught their stride in spades, but this generation has been such a let-down for me. Thank heavens for Nintendo and indie publishers.

Price increases are never welcome news on the customer side, but I've already renewed my Premium at a discount until late next July, and chances are next year's renewal may likewise strike a sale. If anything, more depends on the eventual estimation of whether I'll still need the current tier and even Extra or not (I intend to maintain Essential in any case), but that's a bridge to cross when I get to it.

As for September lineup, I've already commented favourably elsewhere. IGC can never have enough freeroam actventures and RPGs in my book, so the fanheaded drama across the article and the comments here looks smirkworthy at best.

If it's to get high quality games, then I think they should have reduced the price for the essential subs, as they're not getting any benefit from it.

And those 3 games for ps plus seem good. Better than what xbox gets, which is nothing.

I am staying at Plus, but I'm on Extra until January 1, 2025. I'll see how the year goes. If it isn't good enough, I'll just drop back to Essential, but don't see myself dropping Plus entirely. They probably should've had a better lineup before saying they were upping it for quality. XD

Don't have Plus, won't be renewing any time soon except for the occasional month to play a few Resident Evil games online.

I’m subbed through 2027. I’ll decide what to do then.

@Thumper See you over there.

Honestly I’m not sure what I’ll do. I’ve got to November to decide.

Would have dropped my ps plus essential tier long ago if not for the multiplayer.

Why do I have to pay for multiplayer?

I used to have PS Plus and PS Now. When they merged the services I dropped from Premium to Extra because Premium never justified its price. With this new price I can't see a good reason to still have Extra so I'll drop from it to Essential.

I also stopped buying first party titles at launch because of the absurd £70 cost.

Because of corporate greediness Sony has effectively been getting less and less money from me.

Yes, yes they do. Already got 2 years of psplus (bought it last year) so I'm safe until next year, but I don't think I'll sub to psplus again with price like this, cloud saves is great but not $80 great 😕

Psplus in my country is cheap though so maybe I'll subs there if the price didn't increase there.

Yeah, got premium also cheaper but I will lowering my tier, don’t play that much games on my PS5 at the moment and would rather start building a pc to play online for free. I barely use the paid online from sony now, mostly play Apex as my online game. Around 2,60 a month extra on top of regular prices is not gonna break me but If I dont even use the function mights as well drop it.

Price increases for a other sony product - Crunchyroll has also been 40% coming october/september so I’m not even suprised about this one.

Other gaming is happening on my Switch (being a father now) and has allowed me much more gaming around the house. If im not gaming I’d rather invest in my other hobby: motorbikes.

@Blacksmith1985 Yeah, I agree. I miss the PS3 era in that respect. In the times we are living now with inflation on everything, I think Sony should've done things different. Maybe Essensial should be almost free, just contain multiplayer access and add cloud save and free games to the two teers above or something like that.

Since yesterday I changed my mind , I probably cancel my sub until some great games coming to ps extra and re-play my games on disc and digitals what I bought from store. Also Maybe its time to connect my PS3 and start the older games what I rellay enjoyed before. And I wish many ppl will do the same so Sony can see we are not happy at all.

I do not mind if the increase the price but extra will cost "much" more than premium right now? It's too much increase!

Black Friday and stack, black Friday.. and... Stack.

I think I am currently good until mid '26

I subscribed for ten years, but decided to cancel soon after the tiered system was introduced. I don’t see the benefit anymore - I’d like access to the back catalogue games (and cloud saves, which shouldn’t be locked behind a paywall), but with such a backlog, there is little point having access to games which will inevitably leave the service before I have a chance to play them. This additional price hike just confirms that there is no value here for me.

Sony: We have Game Pass prices without Game Pass benefits like day one releases...

@Sequel
If you indeed do not use the online options of plus, it is expensive. But then €49 & €59 per year was already too expensive. I just mean to say that the overall increase is not too bad at €12 per year. It's not a shocking amount or anything.

@Godot25 I wouldn't be so quick. Day 1 is only a perk if they actually get stuff released... And it's actually good.

I was just having the conversation yesterday about how GamePass has really slowed down it's addition cadence.

It would be a really interesting deep dive for somebody to do an analysis that looked at game addition frequency over time, average meta critic score, average game age etc. I suspect the objective data would be quite interesting and we might see how GamePass has changed over time and what the price of those day 1 additions is across the service as a whole.

@GrumpyDev Ehhh
They released Humankind, Sea of Stars and Age of Empires IV for consoles last week
They have Starfield, Lies of P, Party Animals, Payday 3, The Lamplighters League and Cocoon coming in day one in September...
Forza Motorsport, Cities Skylines 2 i October
And that's just currently known stuff.

Plus games stays until you have a plus subscription, I've more than 200, if you have a big backlog you may play the monthly games after a year or two, whenever you want. I think this is a big plus over game pass.

@Godot25 I am talking about objective data over a period of time. Not just this next month which is a convenient sample that fits the agenda. It's an amazing month, but possibly not representative of the service generally in 2023.

@GrumpyDev Well. Game Pass always had better and weaker months. Summer months in every year were especially weak.

Either way. My main point was to say that Sony is now charging same amount of money for less perks. Sony had one day one game in 2023 (Sea of Stars). Xbox had huge amount and will have Starfield in same day as Sony is raising prices.

Do yourself a favor and don't get into Black Desert. So many hours I put into it and I can't even look back at it fondly. I was like a drone, mindlessly grinding away until I finally deleted it and never looked back. I escaped the sunk cost fallacy.

You should have added answer if we will stack up 🤪

@Godot25 No point in announcing your view as a fact. I sub to both services and up to this point ps plus was the better service this year by some margin - for me. This is because GP has gone from adding over 20 games a month to 7 or 8 in recent months. They have also removed the 3 free games with gold offering and replaced them with nothing at all if you were a higher tier subscriber, and they put their prices up 2 months ago.
With a couple of first party titles on the way, it looks good in the next few months, but we've waited a couple of years for this to happen and I went 3 months this year without the series X being turned on.
I stll think both services offer a lot of value at the higher tiers, but remain a rip off for those who just want mp gaming. It was microsoft who introduced charges for mp online, not Sony, but both deserve derrision for continuing the practice.

I get plenty of value from my subs, for me, so I'll remain subbed to both. I feel sorry for those who just want mp online, they are forced to be part of an expensive service via ps essential or gp core, with access to games they dont need or want. Both Sony and MS should offer a 'bare bones' online only with cloud saves option if they intend to continue fleecing users for online pay.

Whats more concerning is the over reaction of many posters here to what amounts to a price increase in an era where we have major increases everwhere. Its shows the very worst of the internets echo chamber where everyones discontent gets built to the max and each post wants to go further in stating how awful this is and 'they will be sorry'. Prices go up, buy or dont buy, but they are not trying to pimp your kids...

This is outrageous, it's unfair.
I'm still "locked" on so called premium tier till November...then I will cancel it. Unless they put some amazing discount I will not encourage these scammy methods.

I pay for the essential tier for cloud backup only and it was already too expensive but after this it's crazy -.-

As a multiplatform gamer the only real reason I have kept the lowest tier is for online play as weekly gaming buds are all on PS. I get that costs are going up and that subscriptions are plateuing but this will kill the second and third tiers dead imo.

Just buy on sale and stack up. And don't forget to purchase PlayStation credit from a cheaper source, like Shop.to for those in the UK. I got 12 months essential for about £35 and chose to pay in 3 payments on Paypal.

The price hike hurts. A lot. Not because I can’t afford it, but because it’s just poorly timed messaging. Prices for these things are going up across the board, but this is a much steeper jump (at least for the inexplicable higher percentage shaft to the U.S. Remember our VATS isn’t included like in UK/Europe, so add another 8% at least to that price) than any other service has done.

I’m sure Sony has some great accountants that have predicted the added money per sub will offset the attrition rate of current subscribers dropping their subscription. But it does weaken the community to have a more divided community of ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’.

As for me, I think I’ll go ahead and get another year locked down on the old price before it goes up. Even for Black Friday, I doubt the new sale prices will be more than a 35-40% discount, so the price for the next week is going to be the lowest going forward, even accounting for sales.

But also, as others have said, I’m banking on something tasty from first party dropping onto the service soon to justify this. Even getting God of War Ragnarok added to Extra will help.

This is worse than Nintendo's hike for NSO, Jesus Christ on an electric trike...

I did get another year because last year on Black Friday the price went down only by 25% so with the new price, even with 25% discount it still is cheaper now. But I must say that for the next year I don't know... If the price still goes up and they don't start ofering better games then...

Extra has been good, and I'm good until 2025 and will probably buy another year, around Black Friday. I always wait to buy my PS Plus subscription at a discount so the real price never really bothered me anyways. Didn't they announce that they are testing new features to the premium tier, and adding like discord and streaming in the near future?

I have both GP and PS+ and without a doubt I've been getting a lot more value from the former. PS+ has either really old stuff I've already bought on deep sale, ancient first party titles or stuff that's either coming or has already left GP.

Save for Inscryption there has been nothing added to the service that has interested me, I've only played a handful of titles that came with the service initially (the main one being shadow warrior 3, which made the leap to GP anyway).

Was thinking about letting my sub lapse in december, this sealed the deal.

I’m definitely dropping extra and going back to essential.

There needs to be a multiplayer only tier of PS Plus. Price increases for mediocre games doesn't fly with me. I really don't care about the free games, I just want the multiplayer! I hate that this functionality sits behind paywalls.

I actually just need PS Plus for the cloud save. The day they let me copy my PS5 saves to a USB (which most likely would be never) I would immediately cancel my subscription. Or (also very unlikely) if they ever release a cheaper tier for cloud save only, with no free games and no online multiplayer, I’d gladly take that.

Black Desert leaving Game Pass today. But so is Tinykin. Great little game that would be welcome on PS subscription.

I'm in agreement that the price hike is ridiculous and this slate of games is not great. But I feel like PushSquare plays a constant game of "poke the bear". The discontent is there but this site seems to enjoy stoking the fire. I get it that the articles get clicks, but it creates a toxic environment.

I've always loved Playstation but like many others it's looking like it might be time to move on. Compare ps plus (any tier) to Xbox game pass and there is no comparison, Xbox game pass blows PS plus out of the water.
For me it's a toss up between going to Xbox or pc gaming. At least on pc you don't have to pay just to play online.

@KaijuKaiser Bruh you are being a cocksucker for them

@KaijuKaiser The games Sony "gives" us aren't worth a $40 hike overnight with no added benefits. Those games aren't permanently ours so you didn't really receive anything. They gave you extended temporary access to their game which will be taken away when they want. If you decide the price is too high and cancel your subscription you lose access to all of them anyways. Just saying, for a lot of people what Sony is doing is wrong and looks greedy. They need to explain for better why they feel that increasing my subscription rate by a full 33% or a full THIRD of my previous subscription amount, which doubled fairly recently from $60 a year to $120 a year for this ridiculous tier model, which just allows them to jack prices up more for basically the same features we had before and a few new or revamped ones that many of us likely don't really use. Anyways, ME NO LIKELY SONY CASH GRAB!

@OrtadragoonX you should just be dropping it 🤡

@Agent_P Nintendos other price is seperate

I dropped to PS Plus only or Essential as they call it now. After the first year I dropped the 2 upper tiers. No one likes a higher price, but i will keep my PS Plus Essential. I started my library of "Essential" games on PS3. I will be hoping for sale prices to continue on Black Friday.

Feels like they deliberately took the P with this one. Joke is on us

I actually enjoyed both saints row and generation zeros

@PATRIOTA7MI

I dunno. I enjoy some online games.

I started gaming in 1992, i was 5 years old. In the late 90's/early 2000's, gaming was about passion and creativity, greed and money did not rule the industry...it was a great time, i miss it.

Just looking at it from the games available it's a putrid month but there have been a lot of those in the past so saying it's the 'worst' is probably a stretch. When you factor in the asinine price hikes on PS Plus, I'm sure there's some who will say this is the worst month and it's not completely unfair. When my PS Plus subscription runs out in January, I will for sure not be reupping.

That's it for me for PS+, after being a Sony pony since the PS1 Era. I am dropping my support for Sony, I have had it with their anti-consumer tactics, greedy af prices and their disrespect of us the consumer who have been supportive of them.

I am close enough where I can just save for two more months and can finally buy a computer. Rather have the choices than not have them at all.

@4kgk2
No it's not, it's a cheap hobby for the common man. My other interests cost thousands of percent more. We are just being run over by greed without getting anything more.

@4kgk2 If they let me backup my bloody saves locally I'll probably drop plus straight away. Or just let me play online without the stupid games i never play or I have them. What I want is what I buy.

@CastelloGG Same here I'll buy the games i want and kust me the local backup. When I get the chance to crack my PS5 I there i never copied a game in my life but I just want local backup.

Edited for grammar, fat fingering this on my phone

Actually, you could look at Sony having a triple whammy of poor decisions in the past couple of weeks. After the reveal and issues with this month's PS+ games selection, and the absurdly high PS+ price hike, Sony had another blunder. At least in my opinion.

Let's toss in the anti-consumer practices Sony is pulling with the Playstation Portal. Not incorporating Bluetooth connectivity to the device, or ANY device in 2023, is asinine!

Sony is once again using proprietary tech on a device to the detriment of consumers. Sony or fans can try to spin it any way they like, but this move is clearly planned out to help bolster sales of their Playstation Pulse 3D Elite headset, which coincidentally releases near the date of the Playstation Portal. Not to forget the new Sony earbuds either, and while no release date is currently announced, I've a hunch it won't be far off from the Portals release either.

That is a textbook example of a scummy anti-consumer move. Even Apple wouldn't be bold enough to remove Bluetooth connectivity so they could push their own add-on proprietary tech. The backlash would be immense, and I consider Apple to be one of the most anti-consumer companies out there. Sadly, gamers are a special kind of consumer, ones that seemingly don't care when they're getting scammed. At least the majority, not the vocal minority who visit sites like Push Square and keep up with the industry.

Let's not forget the extra slap in the face, the one where people who already own the original Playstation Pulse 3D headset get shafted because it too is not compatible with the PS Portal.

I have no desire to own the PS Portal because I can already achieve its sole purpose with my phone/tablet, my PS4/PS5, and the FREE PS Remote Play app.

I've been saying it for a while, and I'll repeat it here. Arrogant Sony has returned. Due in part to Microsoft's misteps since the launch of the Xbox One. It's made it to where Sony doesn't even have to truly compete with Microsoft. We'll see if Microsoft's latest plays will push Sony to be more competitive as they were when transitioning from the PS3 to the PS4.

@Dragon83 Death's Door is great, and the servers for Dreams won't close in October, they just aren't updating the game anymore.

Golf game is whatever, good if you like the sport and you don't already own it, but not of interest to many others. I wouldn't call it a terrible game, it's probably well made, just doesn't have wide appeal.

Give me just ps backup/cloud online multiplayer games for fiver or even £7 a month. Bin all the "free" stuff which, while I am stuffing them into my library, I don't think I've ever played a single one.

Not due to make a payment until July 2024 so not sure bothered about the increase right now