PlayStation Plus Prices Are Increasing in UK and Europe Next Month

And here I am, still wondering what we are even paying for...

@ShogunRok Australia too: https://press-start.com.au/news/playstation/2017/07/28/price-playstation-plus-going-australia/

These comments are going to be good, let me get the popcorn in
I am thankful for my Amazon Prime 15 month bargain

That's probably why the past few months of games have been good as of late - to soften the blow of this. It's annoying to say the least, mainly because PS plus is required for online which means that it's pretty much essential

As long as the plus games remain as good as they have been lately I see no problem with this

perhaps they are adding more to the service to warrant the costs, the sign up for the beta of the next update mentioned PSNow for example so what if that is being added to the PS+ service?

plus it could also be to cover publisher fees so we get more AAA games on the free games program

there are many reasons for it so we should wait and see what Sony say about it before we jump to conclusions

@Octane unless you play online ...?

@Anchorsam_9 I think that's the issue. Everyone wants the online, but you need to pay for it (despite the fact that most servers are P2P anyway), and they can just artificially jack up the price by giving ''better'' games away for free.

@Octane Added them in, thanks.

@Raymontigue83 I expect dedicated servers for that price, but most are P2P, so I don't understand why people are fine with paying for online.

Quick reminder to keep the comments section civilised, people. I get that some of you won't be happy about this and that's fine, but don't break the rules while expressing your anger.

That said, feel free to have a good old rant.

Not too bothered. You have to pay to play online, so anything else is [free games] is a bonus...

Might mean we get more premium titles each month. Can't be bad.

like Sony don't make enough money wouldn't be so bad if the service was any good also how come ps3 owners still don't have to pay

@Octane unless every PS Plus subscriber stops paying, I highly doubt they'll listen. I hear you though...

What is the justification for the increase? Are we getting a better service, more servers online? We are forced to use this subscription to go online with games so what benefits are we getting. The quality of the Plus games has been hit and miss for ages and only recently have we had some better titles come through.
PS Now would have been a nice addition.
I will still subscribe as I enjoy gaming with my mates but this seems too steep. PS3 had free online play and now we are charged. The PSN had better reflect this increase with a better service. Microsoft are probably chuckling to themselves right now...

...and this is why you stock up on PS+.
Glad I took advantage of the Days of Play promotion discount on the 12 month PS+ subscription.
I'm sorted for the next 3 years .

Perfect timing on Sonys part. Destiny 2, CoD WW2, Star Wars BF2, FIFA18...
a lot of casuals are going to pick up consoles & jump online.

Guessing psvr might get added to the igc or a psnow sub might get included?

I certainly hope we will get more for our money and Sony haven't announced plans yet. Im genuinely surprised that they didn't use this opportunity to drop ps3 support from the igc, rather than get criticised twice when they eventually do scrap it

It's a tenner more over a year so not too bad, but if they palm us off with more sh!t3 like disc jam or hohokum I will not be pleased. Considering that is literally millions per month more for Sony, they better maintain the quality and bolster the stability of the network.

@Raymontigue83 I think the issue is that a lot of people think they somehow need the money to maintain the servers. Despite the fact that most of it is P2P. Or people use the free games as a justification, but I honestly don't care about those. I get my games day one, and if I didn't buy something last year, I doubt I was that interested in the game to begin with. It's frustrating. Nintendo is going to do the same thing. I expected dedicated servers, but it's all P2P. So yeah, this is just milking their userbase.

I've got no problem with the price increase as such ... I do wonder why there has to be a £30 premium for paying quarterly / monthly. That's nearly as bad as Wonga.

It's still less than a pound a week. I think the games are going to be getting better and better now. I expect tomb raider, alien isolation and shadow of modor etc over the next few months. The thing that I don't like is that psn is flakier than a flaky pastry. Psn and the associated apps need huge improvement. Messages lag horrendously, double and triple post, constantly gives the psn in undergoing maintenance messages and is just a bit great in general really. This needs looking at imo.

_{Language -Tasuki-}

Affects me too these prices are insane At least yearly hasen't changed glad i got the discount 2 months ago

Having never been a person who is affected by 'brand loyalty', I jumped ship from the 360 to PS4 & Pro at the start of this gen'. Although an extra tenner, per year, won't break the bank for me, I feel that I've only got room for one subscription in my life for playing games and the new 'to be released' Xbox X is now starting to grab my attention, especially after learning about this price increase by Sony.

Somebody has to pay for the disaster that is The Emoji Movie, looks like it's the gamers. Cheers Sony! #4ThePlayers

Overall, price increases happen, I don't like them but there we have it. However, I do think that a full £10 increase is a lot when I am not sure that I am going to be getting a better service then when I did before the price hike.

I can't change username, the service can still be flaky and there is no guarantee that PS Plus games are going to continue their current quality streak. I'll end up paying I guess when it is time to renew (next Spring for me) but I will be disappointed if I see no improvements to the service.

How many years can you buy in advance - do the codes stack?

Well, the us psplus already got price hike, so it's a matter of time before others region have it too. There's always pc if you want free online.

@Hengist I think us & uk price of psplus and xbox live is the same.

@licenced Yes, they can stack. I hear there's no limit, or at least it can stack up to 6 year.

Firmware 5.0 better be bloody good.

That's quite a big increase. I'm not a PS+ subscriber at the moment, though this will make me less likely to get it again.

£10 a year is a pretty big jump with no justification given...
Not like we have a choice if we want to play online. Can see more people waiting and getting Destiny 2 on PC instead of PS4 because of this...

I'm so happy that I bought 12 months in advance for 35€ when it was on discount a few weeks ago

That explains the likes of Just Cause 3 on plus and it's also clever timing before the big online shooters and Fifa come out. It's not that much money really but possibly the upper limit of me not complaining too much and at least I don't need a phone app for voice chat 😉

Aye, just got an email about this. I'm still paying monthly which works out that I pay more annually yet I only see it as a measly £6 a month (£7 now). I was never good at maths.

lol, some of you are complete push-overs. At least now Sony knows they could increase it again next year and get "well that makes sense!" comments.

The ps+ games arent a justification for this.

Eh, an extra £10 a year, that's about 83p a month. The monthly charge has only increased by £1, and the quarterly price, by £5. It's not a huge increase, that little bit of extra money isn't going to affect anyone in a major way.

Hopefully, this does mean more substantial PS Plus offerings, but a business needs to review their prices periodically, especially with rising costs in other areas.

I understand people being outraged, but it is a very negligible increase, one less coffee a month, for instance. Barely noticeable. And even then, you can just buy from CDKeys, their prices won't go up much more, certainly.

Ridiculous price for this service. 5.0 better bring more benefits.

Sony in yet another Treating Their Loyal Fans With Contempt shocker! I'm both surprised and shocked*

*lol jk I'm neither of those things, which is sad really.

@wiiware

Money isn't really the issue for me mate, it's the most powerful machine that matters. If both subscriptions are the same price then the choice boils down to hardware. The availability of exclusive games isn't a factor, as the offerings that I've seen, this gen', haven't interested me one bit. Also, since jumping ship to Sony, I have noticed that they seem very interested in pushing what I would describe as 'kids games'. Again, I'm not interested in colourful, pokemon style, platform jumping games and such stuff. I think my subscription renewal is due this October, but I'm going to hold off renewing, as I consider purchasing the new Xbox X.

@Hengist Well if the most powerful hardware is your deciding factor, then get a PC. There's no subscription costs.

Wow this pricing is insane! I hope we get some bloody good servers and Freeby games for that much...

annoying has nearly every month ive already bought them in the past they need to give you a choice for that price

@Crimson_Ridley

I always had a PC in my life mate. I've been building them since, probably, before you were born.

I know ms games are now available on PC, but these days I tend to use my PC for stuff like spreadsheets and C++ coding.

@adf86

I can think of lots more mate. There's nothing wrong with those type of games, if you enjoy them, it just so happens that I don't.

I still don't know where my money is going, but I'm hoping this will make Push Square stop using the term "free games" when talking anout the games we rent while we subscribe...

How many PS+ subscribers are there? 20m + I believe and if they all pay an extra £10, that's an extra £200m a year profit for Sony...It can't be 'that' much to run and maintain the servers, and most games run peer to peer anyway. Most of Sony's servers are used to store your profile information, digital library etc and of course their store. Of course Sony may have a few 'dedicated' servers for online gaming for their own titles but companies like EA, Activision etc have their own servers for gaming. Destiny's Beta for example was stress testing Bungies/Activisions servers to know they can handle the online nature of the game - not just PvP but the PvE too - especially as PvE has a larger player count (the Farm for example). CoD has 'dedicated' servers globally but also have peer to peer if and when situations are more beneficial.
I don't know if ND have their own servers for something like Uncharted or whether these are peer to peer or use Sony's dedicated servers for their first Party games - either way most 3rd party publishers have their own servers or offer peer to peer.

@Hengist The most powerfull machine but new assassin creed still 30 fps and still not 4k? (just like the $100 cheaper ps4 pro). Heh. I don't think infamous 2nd son, bloodborne, uncharted 4, horizon, persona 5, nioh, gt sport, new god of war, new spiderman is a kid games. I mean it's your choice to buy new xbox, it's just weird that the reason is not right.

Also psplus uk is priced £35.64 in playasia.

All those games that you've mentioned, with the exception of GT Sport, I can't stand. So it doesn't really matter if the new AC game is 30fps, as I won't be buying it anyway.

As for the reason 'not being right', could you elaborate, as I find that statement to be somewhat puzzling?

P.S. Thanks for the info' regarding an alternative source for subscription purchases.

@BAMozzy Uncharted is P2P.

https://www.vg247.com/2015/10/28/uncharted-4-multiplayer-will-have-no-dedicated-servers/

Its not big increase. You can always get subs cheaper anyway than the quoted prices. Great service free games and all that jazz.

@b1ackjack_ps

Why did you not renew during E3?

@Bigkopman

Prices never stay the same for goods across any industry

It is never nice to have to pay more but....£10 a year divided by 12 = £0.83p increase per month, I can barely get a Freddo for that these days!
If the games continue to improve and stay that way, then that's a pretty fair price to me. Also, most people will likely pay less than the asking price anyway, like we do now.

@Hengist Haha probably, I was born in 1990.

My Plus subscription renews on the 27th August! So I'm ok, for a year at least!

@Crimson_Ridley

Talk about making me feel old mate.

@Octane Proves my point then...

this was inevitable in my opinion, for the UK at least. don't think anyone mentioned it.. but the value of sterling has suffered quite a slump in the past year. the £40 sub includes a 20% sales tax, so the actual US$ equivalent is around $43 which is notably less than it is in the US.

that said, my subscription ends at the end of the year, and unless there's an online game that really appeals to me, i'll probably not renew it - the price is not a major factor - i haven't logged in to PSN since early june. i generally get my subs from elsewhere at less than the face value - £32 it cost me last year.

@BAMozzy - think your maths is a bit off.. it's not an extra £200m profit. there are 20m subscribers worldwide. probably about 2m ish are in the UK.. so it's £20m. and of course you haven't considered that sony does its business in yen, so the slump in sterling will have resulted in decreased revenues from UK division for shareholders.

@leucocyte I was merely pointing out the principal in terms people would relate to. There are more than 20m Subscribers and not everyone I bet buys a 'year's' worth at a time. If they buy quarterly in the UK, that's an extra £20 a year per person.

The maths was a principal - I know that the US maybe pay an Extra $10 that may work out as an additional £7 a year, then you have the €10 increase and no-doubt an increase in Japan. Regardless of exactly how much 'extra' that Sony may get from this increase, once you factor in Exchange Rates for every region, its still a 'sizeable' profit increase from each person per year.

Just because I simplified it for the purpose of showing how a 'little' increase can have a major profit boost for Sony on an annual basis, the figures themselves were not 'important'. The principal however was.

It may only be a 'small' increase for an individual BUT the gains that Sony make, having 20m+ subscribers blackmailed into paying for PS+ to access ALL the features and functionality of the games they have paid £40 or more to play. Its already a premium price per game and then having to pay a subscription to play these games online is ridiculous. Compare to a PC - same games are cheaper despite the fact they are better quality (higher quality textures, lighting, frame rates etc - if you have the hardware) and NO additional charge to play online - I have already paid for online with my Internet cost.

I wonder how many Subscribers Sony would have if Online was 'free' as it was/is on PS3? I know the same applies to Xbox as well but I still don't think that Sony's is the 'premium' experience although I will admit that in the past month (and upcoming month) IGC has improved.

If this standard of IGC had been a regular occurrence for the past 6months or more, the increase in costs, would possibly feel a bit easier to take. Right now though, it still feels a bit much. For those that still game on PS3 and Vita, buy a LOT online, then maybe the price hike is easier to take. For someone like me, who predominantly feels blackmailed into buying PS+ for the sole purpose of full access to the games I am paying a 'premium' price for, its a bit hard to justify. Of course I will still buy PS+ because I have NO Choice if I want to play all the features in all my games. I guess I could cancel and just play all my MP games on Xbox One X and keep the Pro for just Single Player 'exclusives'....

@BAMozzy - you're making an unfounded assumption that an increase is all a 'sizeable profit' because there have been no additional increase in costs. it's like suggesting that tesco, sainsbury, etc. have been hiking the price of food just to rake it in.

@leucocyte Not making any assumptions at all. What are you getting for that money? Its not as if Sony are providing anything significantly more than they were able to offer during the PS3 era. Its not as if 'online' is costing 'them' more. Those 1m or so people that subscribed for IGC and a small bonus discount certainly wasn't paying for the millions of us who happily played online for nothing more than our internet bill.

Its probably costing Sony more now to develop games. Its not as if Devs can make the games as quick as they were able to on last gen. We as gamers expect them to be bigger, better and visually more stunning. Also with higher resolution, higher polygon counts, improved textures and lighting etc, it's taking longer to make 'characters' or environments look right. Because its taking longer, the additional costs (staff pay, overheads like electricity of these studio's paying actors to either do voice work or motion capture etc) are eating into their profits so its easier to increase the costs of the Subscription services to offset these costs and maintain, if not increase, their profit margin. They can't guarantee that the 'extra' time and costs of game development will return a profit. I bet that U4 had to sell a lot more than U1-3 to see it become profitable. Its not just ND that can't make a game in 2yrs that's bigger and better than their predecessor in 4k and HDR. Sony still have to pay the staff, still have to keep the studio's open whilst games are developed and can actually start selling to recover that investment.

What we actually pay for with PS+ is probably insignificant in terms of costs to Sony. Those that don't subscribe can still access the store, still access some online functionality and as most online games use peer to peer or external (like Activisions or EA) servers, the cost to Sony is negligible. Maybe a tiny fraction of what we pay goes to maintaining the store, the same store that EVERY PS owner has access too regardless of subscription status. Every sale, regardless of how much of a discount, also brings in some money to Sony. More if you don't subscribe of course. The 'free' games probably do cost Sony something, but I doubt the costs of everything that PS+ offers, and considering the numbers of subscribers that have jumped up significantly on PS4 because its now 'essential' for online gaming, are the reason behind the increase in cost.

The increase is almost a guarantee of income per annum. Whether its exactly £200m or not, its still a 'sizeable' boost to the overall income/profits. That profit (or extra that this price hike gives to Sony) could well be put back into Sony's game studio's for the continued development as costs here continue to rise but the increase is unlikely to be more about rising costs of the 'PS+ service' we are paying for directly.

Sony are certainly not going to remove the subscription charge for Online and I bet though, if they did, the numbers of PS+ subscribers would drop rapidly. That would more likely affect the game development rather than impact on the IGC or Discounts in the Store. They may actually get 'more' money from the store because that extra 10% discount that non-subscribers pay would go to Sony anyway but certainly not the same profit they can make by making Online a paid service.

Maybe 'profit' is the wrong word but that 'extra' money is probably offsetting the 'extra' costs of game development and Sony staff pay rather than any significant cost rises in the PS+ service itself

F************************************CK
Ok then xD Hope they do "Days of Play" every year

Wont somebody please think of the children!!

@BAMozzy Maybe 'profit' is the wrong word but that 'extra' money is probably offsetting the 'extra' costs of game development and Sony staff pay rather than any significant cost rises in the PS+ service itself <<< this

I would rather get no games for free and have the membership price go down just for playing online.