After months of reports and rumours surrounding a potential Game Pass competitor, Sony has today announced a significant shake up to its PlayStation Plus subscription service. The announcement comes from PlayStation boss Jim Ryan in a post on the PlayStation Blog, who details the new-look PlayStation Plus.
This new service, launching in June, will combine both PlayStation Plus and PlayStation Now into a single service, offering three different subscription tiers: Essential, Extra and Premium.
The contents of these three tiers can be seen below:
PlayStation Plus Essential:
Offers the same benefits that the current PlayStation Plus service provides, including monthly games, discounts, cloud storage and online multiplayer access.
The cost of this tier will remain the same as the current price of PlayStation Plus.
⁃ United States: $9.99 monthly / $24.99 quarterly / $59.99 yearly
⁃ Europe: €8.99 monthly / €24.99 quarterly / €59.99 yearly
⁃ United Kingdom: £6.99 monthly / £19.99 quarterly / £49.99 yearly
⁃ Japan: ¥850 monthly / ¥2,150 quarterly / ¥5,143 yearly
PlayStation Plus Extra:
Includes all the benefits of the Essential tier, plus a catalog of up to 400 PS4 and PS5 games. The games catalog will feature titles from both PlayStation Studios third-party developers. These games will be available to download and play locally.
Price:
– United States: $14.99 monthly / $39.99 quarterly / $99.99 yearly
– Europe: €13.99 monthly / €39.99 quarterly / €99.99 yearly
– United Kingdom: £10.99 monthly / £31.99 quarterly / £83.99 yearly
– Japan: ¥1,300 monthly / ¥3,600 quarterly / ¥8,600 yearly
PlayStation Plus Premium:
Sony’s top tier offering provides all the perks of the Essential and Extra tiers, but adds up to 340 additional games from the original PlayStation, PS2, PS3 and PSP. The only caveat is that PS3 games can only be streamed, not played locally. It’s likely that this has something to do with the console’s cell processor, which was known to be difficult for developers to work with.
Sony’s Premium tier will also grant access to cloud streaming for original PlayStation, PS2, PSP and PS4 titles, providing you live in a country where PlayStation Now is currently available.
Lastly, premium tier subscribers will also get access to time-limited game trials, which will allow players to try out select games before needing to buy.
At launch, Extra and Premium tier subscribers can expect to see Death Stranding, God of War, Marvel’s Spider-Man, Marvel’s Spider-Man; Miles Morales, Mortal Kombat 11 and Returnal as part of the catalog of games. Once PlayStation Now has transitioned into the new-look PlayStation Plus, it will no longer be offered as a standalone service.
Existing PlayStation Now subscribers will be automatically shifted to the Premium tier, while current PlayStation Plus subscribers will be moved to the Essential tier.
The launch in June will will begin with a phased regional approach, starting with “several markets” in Asia, followed by North America, then Europe, and so on. Ryan states that their aim is to have the new service live in “most” PlayStation Network territories by the end of the first half of 2022, with plans to also expand the cloud streaming component to more locations; more details will be provided “at a later date.”
“Building upon more than 25 years of expertise in gaming innovation, this change to our subscription services highlights our continued efforts to evolve our network services business to match our customer’s preferences,” a statement from Ryan read.
“With the all-new PlayStation Plus, we’re focused on delivering a compelling game subscription service with curated content from our exclusive PlayStation Studios team and our third-party partners,” the statement continued. “The newly enhanced PlayStation Plus will enable our fans to discover and engage with more content than ever before, and deepen their connection with the PlayStation community through shared experiences.”
Expect to hear more about the new service as we get closer to the launch window in June.