Current PS Plus Subscribers Screwed Again by Days of Play Discounts

„If you want to go from PS Plus Essential to PS Plus Extra, or PS Plus Extra to PS Plus Premium, then you get a discount“

I think this is incorrect. You only get discount if upgrading to Premium, NOT if you want to upgrade from Essential to Extra.

Feel bad for everyone caught out but feeling very smug that timed it perfectly this year - my annual subscription expires next week.

Reminder for those in the same boat - don't forget to turn off 'auto renewal'.

Don't be afraid to let your subscription expire, then just renew it next time there's a sale on.

Your collection of PS plus essential games that you've acquired will all still be there waiting for you once you re-sub

They generally have these sales at least 2 - 3 times a year. Black Friday will likely be the next one, if your subscription expires before November just let it run out and renew at the cheaper prices.

Why pay full price for something when you don't have to.... it's just madness

Its a non issue for me. Even if I was going to renew premium in November, its well known that all you have to do is not reup and let it lapse, then wait for the 50% off offer that will inevitably come. I did that for years up until this year when I plan on finally not renewing. It usually only takes a few days before the offer comes. They want you more than you want them.

I think extra is where it's most reasonable. Haven't bought a new Playstation game for years, just wait for it on extra, if it doesn't come it doesn't get played. Unless I see something at CEX. Stellar blade one day, BG3 one day. It's been a great personal money saver and I've played games start to finish that wouldn't normally get SSD space.

Ah, I thought you could upgrade from essential to extra for 33% off. But nope! Oh well, I'll keep my money

Seems fine to me, UK complains alot about a few bucks in savings. Is your economy that bad SMH

PS+ is such a ripoff esp premium.

@JoeNobody
I think some people are just not content to pay more for less.

Should I play GTA V before I play VI? Or is this standalone?

@JoeNobody when some people have to work 3 jobs, or work one and have to claim benefits, or you are on benefits full stop, yes, the economy is a bit shall we say; lapsed.

And I say this as someone one disability benefits and looking for casual part time work since 2021, as thats what my disability allows. So yeah, 5 years solid of looking for work in my own personal experience, and 15 years stuck in the benefits system with no support.

I could say a lot stronger words about the state of the country, but even with those few examples that should say enough.

For the very first time in... 12 years, I will not renewed my PS+ subscrption. I am tired of being punished for being loyal to this brand.

I can only speak for myself, obviously, but the past couple months have felt like Sony giving me the finger, right to my face, and then demanding I bend over while taunting me to find a new hobby if I don't like it.

As long as they don't change my £65 a year for Premium, I am happy

Par for the course. They haven't given discounts for extending memberships for years, which is typical of greedy Sony.

There's nothing "reportedly" about the 12 month subscription increase Down Under, $10/yr increase across all tiers, if I could post a picture from PSN Australia Web store I would!

As I mentioned in the Days of Play thread, a few days ago a theoretical 25% discount on a lapsed Essential subscription would've been $103/yr reduced to $77/78...now IF even offered here, it would be $113/yr & only reduces to $84/85...so instead they cagily word it as "up to 33% in select countries", whoopee?!🙄

Ever since the introduction of the "tiers" system they quietly nuked the ability to buy discounted subscriptions at retail during Days of Play, Black Friday etc.,& effectively created the monopoly thru PSN only,with no recourse for existing subscribers to "stack" like it was somehow cheating or defrauding them.

In the meantime they've increased the price dramatically with little to show for it...the PS Classics range continues at a trickle with little third party support & zero promotion..again, little wonder Implicit Conversions elected to take Atari's $$ & join them when they couldn't even discuss their PS Classics works!

The store monopoly on subscriptions & zero incentives to resubscribe,(other than the recent increase for lapsing/changing tiers),might pump up their earnings in investor calls, but does zero to win goodwill with the PS5 (& PS4 users whom failed to be won over to upgrade), base whom not only give the Playstation suits their jobs but are supposed to win over with PS6.

Goodluck with that treating players like cash cows & dividing PS regions with some effectively subsidising others with additional price increases!🙄

Goodluck posting those critiqueson the PS Blog either! So much for listening to players feedback!😂

Feeling blessed I have never had to worry about saving a few dollars here and there a month on gaming...

You would think Sony would like the money now instead of possible not getting any money later. With the price increases it would have been some good pr if they changed their mind on stacking. Mine runs out Black Friday time definitely considering dropping it completely as only use it for cloud saves. The free games are nice but very rarely play them.

So after not having PS+ for over a year I bought an Essential 1 year subscription when Monster Hunter Wilds released last year, and when it expired this year I bought another 3 months planning for this sale, my subscription expired last week.

If I buy a 1 year subscription tomorrow when the sale starts, I should be good for next year to subscribe again with a discount, right?

@AhmadSumadi all gta games are standalone mate. But V is a masterpiece so get on it

My subscription runs up until 9 June. If I let expire can I get it for 33% off? Also, do I keep the plus games I got over the years?

I have given up with my ps5 for several months now, after being a loyal user and subscriber since the PS2. But with all the price increases for a few free games that I've already played or I'm not interested in, it's just not worth it. Now I just use steam on my laptop and have been playing subnautica 2 and AAA games for dirt cheap compared to playstation.
Now my son just uses the ps5 for Roblox. There is 0 chance of me getting a ps6.

"Given the stage of our console cycle, our hardware sales strategy can be adjusted flexibly, and we intend to minimize the impact of the increased memory costs on this segment going forward by prioritizing monetization of the installed base to date"

Tao Lin Sony Group CFO

@get2sammyb Don't forget the axing of PS Stars either...needed to buy a fair bit or play select featured "challenges" to even earn sufficient points to redeem as a $5 or $15 "reward" (Down Under)....but since it's axing absolutely nothing unless you count the laughable merch deals for EU/U.S. customers! 🙄
Really doesn't help the perception (right or wrong),that they're using PS Plus to recoup lost revenue from their live service flops!

Makes Jim Ryan's mea culpa when he tried to shut PS3/Vita legacy stores with little notice & personally say "we got it wrong" ,look almost player/consumer friendly when the reality is he set the current standards now of current management to stay silent & NEVER engage with players....the days of folks like Shawn Layden,Shuhei Yoshida, even folks like Adam Boyes, etc have long gone!😕

They expect players to be like Nintendo or Apple acolytes, take the increases & smite the unfaithful! Old enough to recall when not only we'd see price drops on consoles over time but how the Platnium Classics range on PS1 & 2 undercut the likes of Nintendo stubbornly keep their first party offerings at full price!

Even during PS4 era you'd see a mix of first party pricing & good discounts later depending on games being remasters or whatsuch...compare that to this gen with initial begrudging upgrade pricing to dispensing of it altogether & charge higher prices on the likes of TLOU,Until Dawn etc

I let mine lapse until this month, purely because you get penalised for being a consistent customer in this sale, same is true of Black Friday. I will check later if I can renew for 12 months and simply let it lapse until Days of Play 2027. The things you have to do to save a little cash haha

Be sure to turn off auto-renew and buy your PSN credit at a discount from a key reseller to get the best deal when renewing your subs!

It is taking a dump on loyalty however it's nothing unique to Sony. It's a common widespread consumer tactic across absolutely everything in life. Amy kind of subscription service, TV, internet etc you'll find the exact same new customers only offers to get you in.

There’s a guy on YouTube who says it’s better to just let your sub lapse, and within hours you’ll be offered a deal to either renew or upgrade your sub.

Again absolutely beautiful gift for loyal customers...

Hopefully they don’t start doing this with the Black Friday Deal, where I always get Premium for just over £80. Because I stream to my portal a lot I’m pretty locked in.

@AhmadSumadi GTA V is not a prequel to VI. It’s a fun game but GTA VI (like almost all GTA games) are standalone titles that can be played in any order.

@KillerIsD34D @stu123 Went through this realization with the 2023 price hike, $80 at minimum yearly for what Essential gives you is just too expensive, instead of paying $80+ yearly I spent less than that once and got all the games I really wanted while they were on sale, also been doing a manual saves backups every few months with a $15 USB-C drive instead of relying on cloud saves.

Went to cancel, got offer for £45 (on the Sony website) for a year of Essential.
To be honest, the only thing I'd miss is cloud saves, but that's only due to Sony being too stingy to allow USB backups of PS5 game saves.

Very easy solution to this is to subscribe during Days of Play or Black Friday sale. My sub runs out 4th of June and i will get a new year right away for 33% off as i did the past 3 years and will be doing next year.

@Slideaway1983 ok makes more sense now hopefully things turn around.

Yeah I used to resub around this time each year, but does anyone remember the free extra days we got from sony due to downtime? Because of those extra days my subscription is ending one day after the sale stops. FML

As is usually the case in business, the most loyal customers get the worst deals and treatment.

Common behaviour when it comes to any kind of subscriptions. They don't care about existing clients and are only focused on new clients. Customer loyalty rewards are long gone.

It's likely I will lapse and do multiplayer gaming on PC. If only they had something like, say, a TLOU multiplayer title to keep me interested

@JoeNobody What an absolutely stupid argument. It's not about the "few bucks", it's about the principle of getting completely shafted for being a loyal client 🤦‍♂️

@springer17 common business sense.

They already have your money and know you'll just take it.

I didn't have a subscription for months now, and they only offer me 20% off of essential and extra - not premium. That's wild. In the past I've been subscribed to premium most of the time, and they won't even discount this. Doesn't make sense.

@JoeNobody not holding my breath, but i hope so too.

My personal problem is no one is willing to give me a break because of how long ive been out of active employment- despite the fact ive been selling on ebay to keep my mind going (even if not making a profit, at least it better than nothing, showing i can do customer care, accounts, sales etc). What started out as the death of a parent when I was young became a drinking problem, and now thats over, its evolved to thyroid being removed and now chronic pain, that can 50% of the time, be managed.

Add to that the job market isn't great over here because the government put national insurance up for employers, and a few other things and its all gone a bit wonky.

Im not saying its better most other places, but glad you took the time to at least read what I put and try and understand the answer to your question, as a lot of people would ask the question like you did and simply not acknowledge the reply; so well done for being curious. Its a very hard habit to have nowadays!

@Member_the_game Top man. If only most people had the same common sense as you, companies wouldn't be able to shaft their customers.

Well well well, guess what?
I do not know if PlayStation staff is reading those comments, but for some reason, i have a 25% off discount on the PS+ Essential even if my current subscription is still valid until next month.

Is it because of the dynamic pricing?

EDIT : in my country the PS+ Essential has only a 20% off discount, so it is definitely the dynamic pricing.

@Foxhound few bucks is shafted to you, you must bargin bin your games. CHEAP CHEAP

Before the tiers I used to sometimes grab a PS+ and a PS Now sub in deals like this, maybe I stacked it once but not regularly. I especially liked the Black Friday deals.

After realising I couldn't as I was on Premium in 2024 on Black Friday I left it and did the odd few months that year before getting 12 months last Black Friday.

They may well eventually lose a lot of loyalists by treating them this way, putting up the subscriptions without much to show for it, the Premium tier delivering much less than we hoped as fret Now was folded into it, and some saying that multiplayer should be free without Essential, they are treading a fine line.

I minimized subscription, rather the one year I do one month , and then might not play next month or 2 online i be off , there should be 7'day and 1 day subscriptions 3 days so you use it when you need it .
The free games are less valuable now and if you have catalog of games and backlog its better to buy them once , disk if possible rather then jumping on new ones every month , sony is going in wrong direction since Kutaragi and the worst since Jim Ryan was in charge .Moving headquarters from Japan to usa is bad. The console was special when was Japanese.