That's just moronic and ridiculous. If you cancel you subscription you stop having access to those free games. So you practically rent the games that are free for 50$. Most of these games are older games you would be able to buy online for 15-20$. Little big planet costs less then 15 Euro , that's not even 20$. And like Captain_clayman said they don't even offer cross game chat , that's what gamers care about.

" @Progn0sticator said:

" You had me Sony, I was on-board, $50 for 15 months, okay, I'll spit game and see what you've got. You had me Sony, almost. Then I remembered that all I was doing was renting this shit, to which I verbally exclaimed "FUCK THAAAT." "

You mean like you would movies? What's the big deal? "

If you think of it as a game rental service and you actually want to play the games they offer, then its exceptional value.  If you don't like the games, hey don't sign up and continue as normal buying the games you want to play.  Simples.

"I managed to find $10 worth of content I don't have for this month, I'm sure there's stuff people don't have). $10 over the span of 12 months equates to $120. Let's be fair, and factor in that Sony has a couple of bum-months where there's NOTHING you haven't got/want. That's $100.  So you pay $50 and get $100 worth (at least!) of stuff to play. Deal? It seems like a complete no-brainer to me."

PSN Games

•   Wipeout HD

PS1 Classics

•   Rally Cross 

PlayStation Minis

• Age Of Zombies

DLC

• Cuboid Booster Pack
• Cuboid Bundle Pack
• Cuboid Level Editor
• Magic Orbz Booster Pack
• Magic Orbz Jungle Pack
• Mahjong Tale: Ancient Wisdom Booster Pack
• Smash Cars Virus-Run AddOn
  
• Warhawk Fallen Star Pack 
  

Premium Themes

• Collision Theme

Avatar Items

• Fat Princess Avatar-Pink
• Fat Princess Avatar-Blue

I love how they put a "+" beside your name.  It's like a mark of shame for people who like to flush money down the toilet.

I really think some Sony Execs are kicking themselves for not charging for multiplayer online access. They would at least have a compelling selling point.

" Nope. Never. Not in a million years.  This doesn't fix the "ass" experience that is called psn.  Online multi-player will still suck.  Friends infrastructure will still suck. Trophies are still useless.  Give us a new Dash Board that shows trophies and friends online and what they are playing.  If you're gonna' copy XBOX LIVE ... do it properly! Offering early demos and discounted games is not gonna' get anyone to pay a yearly fee. Sorry Sony, it's too late to start charging for something that's been free for years.  We'll see the numbers in 5 years.  My guess....XBOX LIVE  GOLD members  = approx.  40 million Playstation Plus members = under 1 million.    Man, Sony has done nothing but copy everyone else this console generation.  This is why every time I turn on my PS3 I have to wipe off an inch of dust from non use. "

Meh, I already am paying for Xbox Live and I do pretty much all of my multiplayer gaming on my Xbox 360 anyway.

I think they on the right track in theory. The main reason people pay for Live is the online gaming, since they offer that for free they know they need to offer something else to justify the cost of the service... they just don't seem to have hot that sweet spot just yet. I may decide to give Plus a try, but first they need to make it a bit more than a severely limited PSN version of Gametap.

I could be less impressed, but not by much.
 
I'd rather have the ability to hand pick the good games I want from PSN rather than get shoveled garbage that I will feel I should take because I'm already paying for it. I have tons of games on the go. I can see if I was bored and didn't have anything to play that this would insure I always have things, but that's totally not the case.

i got an email ( i live in europe so i don't know if its the same in the US and other regions ) saying that if you bought a plus subscription ( for 1 year, so 49,99 € ) befor the 3rd of august you would be able to download Littlebigplanet for free ,  link to page explaining plus and availbable content ( in dutch )
 
i think i'm going to go Plus ( prolly this weekend )
 
grtz Allen :p

I'm going for the annual suscription.
Here in Argentina i might be one of the few whose PSP is not hacked, and the PSOne Classics and Minis alone are worth the price.

so, for the free stuff... do you need to stay subscribed?
or could I essentially sign up for 3 months, get the free stuff and never sign up again?

I got it as soon as I saw it.  I wanted wipout hd so it seemed good for now.  I'm hoping that more people I know get this so we'll always have a decent pool games in common with at least a few having multiplayer.  I'd also love it if this somehow led to sony improving their online functionality and ease of use for things like patches.
Now, what can I expect microsoft to do so they can match this service?  Probably nothing in the near future but maybe by years end?

" so, for the free stuff... do you need to stay subscribed? or could I essentially sign up for 3 months, get the free stuff and never sign up again? "

Thats some costly nothing, since PS3 has NO GAMES!   Your paying for Trials, beta's and demos IF and when they happen.  
 
Protip! If you have to pay for a discount, ITS NOT A DISCOUNT!

Why is all this junk clogging up my blu-ray player?

Seems that Sony's trying to get subscription hooks into people; I'm not interested. Also, 2 smart folks out of my 7 have subscribed.

" Why is all this junk clogging up my blu-ray player? "

Don't use my PS3 enough to justify paying for this and even if I did, the benefits are just not that great right now.

" Thats some costly nothing, since PS3 has NO GAMES!   Your paying for Trials, beta's and demos IF and when they happen.    Protip! If you have to pay for a discount, ITS NOT A DISCOUNT! "

It's impossible to 'continue reading this story' on the iPhone app I paid money for.

" I really think some Sony Execs are kicking themselves for not charging for multiplayer online access. They would at least have a compelling selling point. "

if they offered twice as much free content up front then it would be worth it. by now mortal kombat 2 should just be free to the 6 or 7 ps3 owners who still haven't bought it.

" Protip! If you have to pay for a discount, ITS NOT A DISCOUNT! "

As I've hinted before, this service (for $50/year) brings PSN in line with what is offered in Xbox Live Gold (occasional free games, early demos, etc.). Except the real pressure to actually pay a fee is the online gaming, which PSN already gives for free. So I'm not sure how appealing this is. Everyone I know with a PS3 is basically laughing at this. Sony will no doubt get quite a few takers, but for $50 they need to offer something more substantial. :/
 
If this is some sort of half-step toward a fee for the entire service, that would be bad. I doubt Sony will do it (this generation), but it's a signal that pay-to-play online is in all our futures.

" I don't see the point of this right now. You pay $50 dollars a year and.... you don't get anything that exciting or nessasary. "

" @SoothsayerGB said:

" Thats some costly nothing, since PS3 has NO GAMES!   Your paying for Trials, beta's and demos IF and when they happen.    Protip! If you have to pay for a discount, ITS NOT A DISCOUNT! "

PS3 has no games?! YOUR FUCKING STUPID! Obviously you don't get out from under your fanboy rock that often. "

Fuck no.

 I might actually get this. I have only two games off the PSN, so the monthly offerings will probably have some value (at least the full game ones). I trust Sony to put out good games, or I'm sure they know that the service will flop really, really fast. I don't care if I'm just "renting" the free games, if I like the service I'll keep the subscription up. If it flops, I can just buy the games I really want to play again anyways. But seriously, $50 isn't that much, and I might be willing to take the risk.    

I can't really buy into this system, I'm not fond of paying for XBL, but it at least provides you with a service.  I think Penny-Arcade really nailed this on the head with their latest strip, all you're doing is paying for 'free games'.  Ones that disappear once you stop subscribing anyway.
 
Chances are you're only going to be interested in some of the titles, on certain months anyway.  So why not just keep the money and buy the games you do want?

I'll take a Pass for now... 
 
If they wanted to sell this thing they should of offered a 60 minuet demo of Infamous 2 or some other big upcoming game that was an exclusive to PLUS. 
 
Everything they offer now is meh at best, plus I already own Wipeout HD.

  I am thinking of paying for a year. As a show of support to the company that at least tried to give gamers the ability to play games online for free and have at that. 
  I think the only reason that it cost you to play games on live when it was first released was because they wanted to cover the costs of bandwidth for demos and vids and knew that if people got to play games with friends for free no one would pay because there was no such things as extra content to make it worth it. 
  Now days that they have a lot more services to offer they should give us gamers our play for free and just charge us for the premium content like party chat and match making and video services or early access to demos . As only a casual gamer that wants to only play a few games a year online with my mates we just don't bother. So I am not talking my mates into joining me on the ps3 as they at least offer the basics for free.

something I would like paying is some bandwidth priorities . So I can download movies and games at a reasonable speed . Something I am yet to experience

Next... Online Games like Xbox Live?

Someone really needs to sit down and list the difference betweens PSN and XBL so I can finally understand why everyone keeps demanding PSN start offering the same feature set as XBL. As someone who doesn't own a 360 or ever had the opportunity to pay close attention too it I'm always confused a little by the debate.
 
As far as I'm concerned PSN+ seems like it could be a solid service provided Sony can keep the PSN Store updated regularly with lots of games. It feels like PSN+ is more of an addition to PSN than a requirement like XBL subscriptions often comes across. It seems for those who don't subscribe to PSN+ then nothing actually changes for them, they don't suddenly lose features or find there are restrictions to the PSN service. But from my basic understanding there are restrictions in place for non-Gold XBL subscribers, correct?
 
Personally I get the impression that PSN+ is about providing interactive content for your enjoyment while XBL is about providing a higher class experience for online and so forth.
 
Apples & Oranges if you will. I don't get why everyone is shitting on PSN+ myself. It's not mandatory, this is not something you need to subscribe too in order to play games online with your friends through a P2P service like XBL.

Better deals needed - and Free Games access ends if you don't renew your subscription? 
no thanks

Steam is schooling both XBL and PS Plus.  Sooner or later someone's going to come out with a console experience that uses Steam or something like it as a digital distribution portal.   
 
Google, Valve, team up on this.

sounds pretty decent for 50 bucks. i would probably do this if i had a ps3. cant wait to see what next months free games will be.

You know, it would have been really nice if they had rolled in the recently announced Hulu subscription thing into this. That would have been a great value add, but I know better.

I'm not totally comfortable with being given "free games" that are neither free nor actually owned by me.
 
But i don't have a ps3 so i don't have to think about it.

OMG! Playstation Plus. Can't wait for this................