PlayStation's much awaited answer to Xbox Game Pass has finally been revealed. The new system will essentially combine features from PlayStation Plus and PlayStation Now into three different tiers. The changes come into effect this June.

• PlayStation Plus Essential replaces the current PS Plus at $9.99 a month or $59.99 for a year.
• PlayStation Plus Extra adds a catalog of 400 PS4 and PS5 games to download and play for $14.99 a month or $99.99 a year.
• PlayStation Plus Premium adds cloud streaming for PS1, PS2, PSP, PS3, PS4 and PS5 games as well as an additional 340 games for $17.99 a month or $119.99 a year. Some games will be downloadable and some streamable. PS3 games will only be available via streaming.

I don't think that this is really a full answer for Game Pass Ultimate, since day one releases don't seem to be included in any of the tiers. The annual prices don't seem too bad though and I might check out some of the older games by subscribing for a month or two. What do you duders think?

I’ll need a look at the catalog of course but I’m tentatively on board for that mid tier, at least for a few months at a time.

Based on their copy, the essential tier seems worse than current PS+ for the same price. “Two monthly downloadable games” is one fewer than we’ve been getting for quite a while.

Since it's a consolidation of PS Now + PS1 + PSP, we could assume that their PS2/PS3/PS4 offerings are similar to what's being offered on PS Now right now:

• https://psnowguide.com/platform/ps2/
• https://psnowguide.com/platform/ps3/
• https://psnowguide.com/platform/ps4/

There are like only 21 unique PS2 games (I think many of them have been remastered / re-released for PS3 / PS4, e.g. FF12, etc)
Many of the notable PS3 games have also been re-released for PS4, except for Konami games, maybe
PS4 games are okay.

I just want to be able to buy the old games again. And PS3 still being streaming only is a bummer.

I understand completely if Sony is afraid to pull the trigger on Day 1 games to be available on the service, but I REALLY wish that Sony's first party games had a discount for Plus Extra/Premium. Even if it's for just the first week of release. A 20-30% discount ($14-$21 off a $70 game) would be great, and anyone that joins just for one month to get a discount may keep the subscription if they like what else it comes with.

That's a lot of money to pay just to get online, especially in an era where most games are online whether you like it or not. Remember when some speculated that his might be the generation when online gameplay goes free (on console that is)?

I wish the classic game library was on a cheaper tier, then again if most of those games are streaming-only, I'm not interested. Otherwise the value depends on the quality of games, and I do believe that despite not having day-one releases there, Sony may be able to put together a better lineup than Xbox.

Nevertheless I'm going to be the old man yelling at clouds and say that I don't want this just like I don't want Game Pass while being even more paranoid about the future where they stop selling games completely and keep them subscription-only.

That annual subscription seems like it's too cheap compared to monthly and it probably won't be long until they jack that up.

That middle tier seems really cool if you're into the games that are on PlayStation. That last tier is for the diehards who want everything to be backwards compatible. In practice, I doubt many people will sign up for it.

Are the ps1, ps2 and ps3 game library actually worthwhile? Like do they have RE1, SH1, 2, 3 and 4, the PS1 version of SotN and Tenchu?

I understand why they won't release brand new games to the premium service, but Sony should strongly consider adding first run games to the premium service several months after release. I would probably sign up for their highest tier if they did that, cause frankly, I usually wait several weeks before buying a new game anyway.

@sub_o: Whoa, the entirety of the PS2 library is 21 games? Like, was there a bigger or better library for a console?

@apewins: The base package is the same price it is now (both monthly and annual). It's designed to encourage people to commit to longer term memberships. In addition to being like basically everything in the world being cheaper per item when sold in larger quantities, if you get someone to commit to a year, there is a larger chance they auto renew for another year, even if they don't want it.

Xbox has the same online gaming base price. For both platforms, F2P games do not require a subscription to play online (so Fortnite, CoD: Warzone, World of Tanks, etc.).

The news release makes it sound like other than PS3 games, they will be downloadable. I assume this goes back to the architecture of the PS3 causing issues.

@berfunkle: While I could see how great and straight forward it would be if Sony said "after three months of all of our releases, they will be available on the higher tiers of PS+ for no cost", there is no way they will ever do this. The number of people who would not buy new releases because it will be free within a few months would lead to losses that I don't think Sony is ready for. Now offer new releases at a discount for subscribers.....now you're talkin'.

@berfunkle: Returnal is one of the games included in the second tier, so you can picture a scenario where Sony is comfortable with including their games after a year’s time. God of War and Miles Morales are in that tier as well.

This is what I expected but I think it kind of sucks for people that were hoping to get better access to older games. I'm sure there are a plethora of people that don't need Plus for online gaming and only play single player stuff. Lame they have to pay for plus and more just to get access to legacy games. Could have done a retro tier or something that only gives access to PS1-PS3, PSP etc. games.

@ginormous76: My assumption is that they excluded all those remasters / remakes that's available on PS3 / PS4 (e.g. Final Fantasy X, XII, etc). But still, no Otogi nor Bujingai.

Pretty interesting to hear.

I hate that the higher tiers are less of a discount than the base tier is if you buy them yearly.

Hmm, I might actually be tempted to upgrade to Extra... Depends on what games are in there. $100 USD annually is not too bad, and (I hope) that'll be discounted at some point, just like PS+ and PS Now were before. Though I'm not sure why they say "up to 400 games". If they want to add 10 games, are they going to remove 10 other games just so they stay at 400 games? Is it forbidden to offer 401 games? Weird wording.

Online multiplayer is available at the lowest tier, and is the same price it's been since they raised the price to $60 USD a couple of years ago. Also, Plus is not required to play free-to-play games online. I agree it's BS to charge for that, though.

I hope that's a mistake. We used to get 6 games per month and I'm still salty about that. They should be giving at least 2 PS4 and 2 PS5 games per month, even if most of them are small indie titles.

Oh, that is interesting.
Essential: Monthly = $120/year, Annual = $60/year, so 50% discount or $60 discount

Extra: Monthly = $180/year, Annual = $100/year, so 44% discount or $80 discount

Premium: Monthly = $216/year, Annual = $120/year, so 44% discount or $96 discount

PSP games are cool, but I'm disappointed that the new base tier seems to be worse. I already have enough games and so little time to play them that the extra games aren't worth maintaining a subscription for long-term.

A full answer to Gamepass would haemorrhage Sony money. It all comes down to how desperate I am to play Asura's Wrath.

I was hoping the main thing they would do with this services was allow for PS3 games to be downloaded. Disappointing, I don't believe the IBM CPU that was used for the PS3 was so different that the people at Sony PlayStation department couldn't find a way to make this work. It seems like they weren't willing to spend the money to do it. I pretty much already have premium, because I have both PS Plus and PS Now which both cost 60 dollars a year. So I guess when the big change happens, I should be happy with all the added PS1, PS2, possibly more PS3 games, and I never had a PSP so that can be cool. A larger PS4 catalog would also be nice, and I think the PS5 games they allow will be very conservative. There won't be any day one releases, unless its some indie game. And if that's the case, it won't be that much different than Game Pass.

My worry is that there's plenty of mention of streaming in here, which I get, but I have a pretty spiffy internet connection (a 100GB game takes about 15 minutes to download) compared to almost anybody else I know and when I goofed around with a 99 cent trial of Playstation Now last winter it was immediately obvious that I was playing an inferior version of inFamous, or Wreckfest, heck even Fantavision. So if the streaming side of PSNow continues to be a big sell for the bigger tiers - rather than a funny little sideshow and a reminder that that used to be what PSNow was all about - I'll be pretty let down by that.

@av_gamer: The multicore architecture of the PS3 was bananas. It wasn't the CPU, it was the multithreading that makes it so hard to emulate. A modern machine could probably do it now, but it's definitely not trivial to do.

I get that outfits like Konami would rather see their corporate headquarters burnt down and the ashes salted and cursed for 3 generations than let anyone play previous Silent Hill games legally, but those PS2 offerings are paltry.

In all seriousness, licensing is a nightmare, but I'm also not paying extra for excuses.

I don't know. I'm paying for enough subscription services as is. Not sure if I want to add another $5-$8 a month just to get old games I probably would have already purchased if I was at all interested in playing them.

$10 a month works for me, as I basically just need two full price games a year to make it worthwhile. I hope it's a nice library that expands, and hopefully the newer games don't overlap much with Game Pass.

Looks like I'll need to expand my hard drive soon.

The middle tier is interesting, but it's more of a wait-and-see proposition for me. I've already got a sizeable enough backlog of games as is, so it really depends what ends up in the library. Streaming games really doesn't interest me much thanks to dodgy-ish internet in my neck of the woods.

Hmm... for this, I doubt that I would subscribe to that PlayStation's service equivalent to Xbox's Game Pass as I still personally prefer to buy games for each specific platform.

It was $60 for PS+ and $60 for PS Now, so it was already $120 if you had both so no real savings. Kinda sucks if all you had and wanted was PS Now. Because the only way to get it is at $120 rather then the stand alone $60 that it was. And PS Now had online play for any of the PS Now games and let you download PS4 games. Other then the middle tier and adding PS1 and PSP games, this is exactly the same, but screws over PS Now only customers buy raising the price and breaking it into tiers. They probably should have just kept it $60 for PS+ and Now and just added the middle tier at $40.

Curious to see what the divide ends up being between the three options.

And here I thought Nintendo creating a tiered system was harmless. So long as regular PS Plus does not change I guess it's no big deal though.

Game pass gives day 01 access to new releases. Unless Sony is doing the same for PlayStation exclusives I don't really see the point. Almost every game that I want from their back catalogue I already own, or can pick up in one of their near-constant sales that knock 60-70% of the price off.

I've had the luxury of being able to buy most of the first party games at launch for the ps4 and ps5. If I didn't buy it, it's probably because I didn't wanna play it. So the 2nd tier is just a waste of money for me since I would get no benefit (I own all the games already announced to be "included").

Like others, the 3rd tier might be cool but I need to see the list of games. As it stands, I see no point in upgrading. Especially since it seems likely their emulation is not necessarily going to be better than modern emulation on a PC.

I could see myself signing up to the second tier for a month or two to play Returnal and Miles Morales, since Sony seems intent to never discount them enough fot me to buy them.

@peffy said:

@banefirelord said: Based on their copy, the essential tier seems worse than current PS+ for the same price. “Two monthly downloadable games” is one fewer than we’ve been getting for quite a while.

I hope that's a mistake. We used to get 6 games per month and I'm still salty about that. They should be giving at least 2 PS4 and 2 PS5 games per month, even if most of them are small indie titles.

If you just have a PS4, it's only two PS+ games per month. Currently the PS5 game is a bonus. They used to do the same with Vita/PS3 games. These days they include online games or VR games as bonuses too. In the future they will cut down the PS4 offerings and bump up the PS5 offerings commensurately.

Since there are no changes from the current PS+ offering I’m perfectly happy to continue with PlayStation Plus Essential. It continues to be a great deal and much sweeter than competitors offerings. Here’s the six main features, in the order of most importance in my opinion:

100 GB cloud storage and automatic backup for game saves.Online multiplayer for paid-upfront games.Exclusive discounts on games and downloadable content.Monthly access to add games to digital collection, added games are accessible any time PS+ subscription is active.Access to games in PS+ Collection.Exclusive add-ons for free-to-play games.To some it may be a small distinction, however I think collecting PS+ licenses monthly is a better deal than subscribing for access to a pool of temporary licenses. Not being able to guarantee that a title you enjoyed in the past will stick around is bummer. Currently my PS+ library is 170 PS4 titles and 13 PS5 titles. That doesn’t include my many PS3/PSP/Vita titles or any I didn’t add due to lack of interest. It also doesn’t include numerous of games I had purchased before they were offered on PS+.

I do not recall that. It was only the last generation where the de facto became paid-online.

I agree with that a lot! I thought streaming would be okay until purchase options started disappearing. You used to be able to buy old TV shows on platforms like Apple (formerly called iTunes). While you still can certain anchor shows for streaming networks have left or never came in the first place. You can’t buy a season of King of the Hill since Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox; they want you to subscribe to Disney+ to ‘rent’ it.

This I am not so sure. They did increase the cost a few years ago and the competitive offer from Microsoft is priced to match. Neither has moved since then. Sony has effectively increased the price in the most recent years. For most of PlayStation Plus’s existence they offered regular sales for new subscriptions and for existing subscribers to extend their membership. These days those sales are not applicable to existing subscribers so they must be getting more revenue from their regular user base. That change may be enough to hold off a price increase for a few years.

Exactly. Game Pass Ultimate is about $180 a year at the moment and as long as you play 3 full priced releases in that calendar year then everything else is a bonus. If I wasn't getting those big day one releases then I could easily pick up all the other things along the way on various sales and never engage with the subscription.

I don't like how Sony Interactive Entertainment is being so arrogant, just like in the PS3 era.

@humanity said:

Not really because if you buy 3 full-priced games a year, you own them and you can play them whenever you like. If you rent them, you lose access the moment you stop subscribing or they leave the service. You paid the same amount but end up owning nothing. I have games on my Xbox account that I bought more than 10 years ago that I still go back to from time to time, and my Steam account is nearing 20 years of service.

This is my biggest gripe with all of this. Xbox has some of that older catalog on Game Pass, but you can also buy them separately and play your old discs or downloads directly. Sony know that they can make more money this way and I get it, but it's not very friendly for customers.

*checks to see if my PS3 still works*

I'm good. I still have a way to play Midnight Club LA.

@apewins: I think this is a different set of priorities. I don’t care about owning the games at all in this situation. If I subscribe to these tiers it’s because I just wanted to play something in the moment and no matter how you slice it it’s probably going to be cheaper than buying a copy to own.

Obviously none of these services are attractive if you need to be able to say “this is mine” so it’s a weird argument to make against them I think.

That's probably the reason they don't quite fancy diving in completely. They could potentially brute force it but do Sony really want to put that out as a product? The PS2 emulation on the 60GB PS3's was nowhere near consistent and they had to kind of bodge that together with numerous firmware updates.

At that point, just let the hobbyists hit that mark. If Sony can't make it work across the board, it's shit flung in their direction. If the rPCS3 guys are in the same boat, they're seen as legends.

The chat about this "new" service has been insanely infuriating to hear. The list of 700+ games they're "adding" is already published (https://www.playstation.com/en-gb/ps-now/ps-now-games/). It's been running for ages, with games having been downloadable for at least a couple years.

The only real fundamental change they've made (and the part that makes this seem like questionable value) is that you now require PS+ if you want to sub to PS Now.

What is this even supposed to mean

If they’d make PS3 games downloadable and give a number of PS1/PS2 games the same kind of shining Microsoft has done, I would be excited. Now it’s just ”Eh”.

The signs of arrogance from them that I've known are increasing the value of their published 1st party games from $60 to $70 USD, while the PS5 console launch price is more expensive than PS4.

Oh, back in the year 2006, when the PS3's launch price gets announced, customers appear that they're overwhelmed as it costs $599 USD.