I know that everyone is caught up in the excitement over new consoles, which is fine, but I just want to note that Sony tying a bunch of Playstation Plus stuff to owning a PS5 is piping hot garbage, especially because you can't buy a PS5 even if you want one most places. It's not just Bugsnax, which at least kind of makes sense because it's a specific version of the game they're offering that won't run on PS4, it's the PS Plus Collection, which can only be activated on a PS5 (it doesn't even have to be your PS5; you can use a friend's) and then can be played fine on PS4.

What the hell?

PlayStation Plus is a paid subscription service. No other service that I can think of locks you out of content that you're more or less paying for until you have hardware that content doesn't need to run. Netflix doesn't make you log on with a 4K TV if you want to watch a bunch of 1080p content. Apple Music doesn't make you log in with high def speakers to listen to a bunch of its normal music. This has flown under the radar but deserves a lot more attention.

It's one thing to give you an incentive to upgrade by offering a PS5 game, even though nobody can get a PS5, I understand that. But locking a bunch of other stuff for the PS4 behind more expensive hardware that isn't even widely available, is just incredibly tone deaf and makes no sense.

We all pay the same amount for PlayStation Plus and, again, no other company does this.

My understanding is that the PS+ collection will be available for some amount of time, not just the typical one month. Presumably it will persist into next year when it’s easier to purchase a PS5. It also consists of a bunch of games one would likely own had they had PS+ through the PS4 generation. Not really sure this is worth getting worked up about.

@navster15: That doesn't matter. Also...and this is part of why it's done this way, people are more likely to want to play these games now when a PS5 is ungettable than when they have one and there's software out for it.

People might also cancel their PS+ subscriptions or not want to get a PS5 or whatever, and they're paying for the rentals now.

"Don't worry, this Netflix content you pay for is locked to people who can access a Chromecast, even though you don't need to view it only on Chromecast, and it's part of the sub you pay for, but it will be easy to get a Chromecast in 6 months and the content will still be there." What?

For me personally it's much more the principle of the thing than the games themselves, most of which I've played or own. It's a complete dick move from Sony, and it's totally arbitrary (again you don't even need to own a PS5 to play these games, you just need access to one to activate it, what?)

It's a trash corporate move and deserves a lot more backlash than it's gotten.

"It's not worth getting worked up about" is just code for "I personally don't care for whatever reason."

Arbitrarily locking content you pay for is a very bad precedent and there may very well come a time when it's done in a way that does affect you personally.

I’m a PS+ subscriber who only has a PS4. I purchased my sub with the understanding that I get two games a month and online play. That has not changed. Sony is now offering an additional bonus to PS5 owners, but nothing is being taken away from me. Heck, I technically get more now because I claimed PS5 Bugsnax for free. I don’t know what else to tell you, but if this is where you make your stand, enjoy the view from that hill I suppose.

Under what circumstances have you paid for the ps+ collection? It's a free PS5 feature of ps+. It's not like you had the service and then they took it away from you to make it exclusive to PS5. They were previously priced titles that are now free to plus members who bought a ps5 and most have been free to ps4 owners in the past. And last I checked we aren't being billed more to accommodate PS5 users having this feature. In fact, PS5 owners have paid an additional fee that you have not because they bought a PS5.

I'm just trying to imagine being angry about people who spent $500 getting free games that I've had access to (and in most cases, have had free from ps+ as well) and I can't work up that kinda anger. I'd even say that it seems nice that Sony realizes console launches are barren and are offering something to those who buy in early. They should go further with it, really.

I suppose when it comes down to it, there's a pessimistic take on everything though.

@mezza: We have all paid for PlayStation+. The PlayStation collection is part of that service, but is locked behind an incredibly arbitrary and at the moment difficult to access way of activating it (you don't actually have to own a PS5, again, you just need to log into one once to activate it for...reasons.)

It is part of PlayStation Plus, not PS5, and Sony is almost certainly paying for it out of PS+ funds.

In no other industry would this be accepted. If Apple Music put a bunch of their songs behind a wall that you could only get access to if you bought the latest iPhone people would be very pissed. Same if they did that with AppleTV.

It's not a reward for buying a PS5 (and you don't get access if you own a PS5 but do not subscribe to PlayStation Plus) it's part of a service PS+ users pay for that's locked behind a hardware wall which is made more of a wall by artificial scarcity, and it's an anti-consumer practice.

A bunch of people in this thread are saying "Well it's not actual fraud because they never said you would get it by subscribing" and I have not claimed it was fraud, I said it was anti-consumer to arbitrarily lock parts of a service behind hardware, which it is.

The ps+ always offered device specific benefits. In most cases, you couldn’t play ps3 offerings on other ps devices. Same was true for ps Vita games and PS4 games. The ps collections seems like a neat ps5 benefit while there aren’t a lot of PS5 games to offer

i don't necessarily blame you for taking issue with the practice- but for the record- Apple has seemingly built their whole business around locking software and services behind a hardware barrier. and yes- there absolutely are elements of Apple's software and services that are tied to specific hardware/OS renditions that cannot be explained away by meaningful spec differences- sometimes they just want you to pay the money for the upgrade, and then dangle the software feature as incentive (see multi user facetime). it's a market decision, not a capability one.

i personally don't have an issue with Sony stuff because it's a perk that i never had an expectation of receiving- PS+ collection has never been pitched as a perk for the ps4, so i'm not particularly incensed it's not there. i can understand a certain amount of disappointment maybe- but it's not like you can't play those games unless you have a ps5.

anti-consumer? maaaybe? but super common in tech? absolutely. they have to incentivize early adopters somehow- especially when ps5 native games are so sparse.

@bigsocrates: No one is saying you said it's fraud. We're responding to your statement that they've effectively locked you out of content that you've paid for. To which, I ask, how have you paid for it only to be locked out of it? You still have access to ps+ and all that was offered on the ps4. You don't have access to what is offered on the ps5 for ps+. Because you haven't bought a ps5. If your only answer to that is to set up a straw man by saying we're claiming it's not fraud and missing your point then I can't say that you've convinced me.

This is a pretty ridiculous thing to get worked up over. This was always advertised as something that was going to be PS5 exclusive. It's also not like they hiked up the price of PS+ for PS4 owners to justify this addition.

Let's say you bought a year of PS+ before this was announced. You're getting exactly what you payed for if you only own a PS4. If you own a PS5 the you're getting more than what you payed for.

There is nothing wrong here. This would only be worth getting upset about if they removed features that were previously available and locked them behind owning a PS5.

I thought it was kind of lame that I had most of the titles through ps+ already, but maybe now I’ll finally play Monster Hunter. If you know someone with a PS5 you could sign in on their device, claim them and download them to your PS4, you only need PS5 to claim.

I don't know what your problem is because you assume we know exactly what you're talking about

What do you actually have a bugbear with?

I fundamentally understand what the issue here is, but as a PS+ subscriber I was only ever under the impression that the PS Collection was meant as a nod to players who missed out on the PS4 and a boon to the PS5's paltry launch lineup otherwise.

I honestly didn't even expect those games to be playable on the PS4, though that was before I realized that PS4 and PS5 editions of games are entirely different SKUs...which is still kind of confusing, as someone who's not a PC gamer but understands you don't have to download a new copy of a game every time you upgrade your hardware.

So, yea, again I fundamentally get that Sony is technically depriving their paying customers of a list of games that are totally playable on PS4, and that you can download those games on your PS4 if you wish once you've activated their license through PS Collection is a neat if somewhat perfunctory feature (...why I would ever hook up a PS4 once I owned a PS5 is beyond me...) but I can't convince myself to get worked up about it.

Offering perks to people who upgrade is perfectly fine to me and it's not as if they've said it will be taken away in a month. Yes technically you could log into a friend's PS5, claim the games and then go and play them on your PS4 but Sony probably figures the number of people who will actually do that is so small that it's not worth trying to put together a way to stop that.

In fact if they did offer all those games to existing PS4 owners it would probably be a bad business move. You don't drive people to the new platform by giving them 20 new things to play on the old platform.

I have a PS5 so this doesn't impact me but it does seem a little arbitrary. It's not like anyone trying to get a PS5 needs that extra incentive so they should just roll it into PS+ for everyone.

Did the price of PS+ go up?

Can you not claim these games in the web browser?

Not to make it a sort of console war, but it is surprising that Sony is talking about having a Gamepass like service when they are already gatekeeping their "free" games behind a particular console. Gamepass gets all the news, while this is an after thought. I think most people did see the list of games and just kind of shrug it off immediately without thinking about the weird implications. But isn't this also kind of what Nintendo did with their 3DS Ambassador system?

I get the anti-consumerism happening and I also get why someone wouldn't be bothered by it considering that it has become the basic business model (probably the only disagreement I have with OP).

@the_nubster: no it can only be claimed on the ps store app on ps5

I agree that it's bad optics on Sony's part. On the other hand, part of me finds it really funny that both Sony and Microsoft have had to market access to a bunch of last-gen games to get people to buy their new consoles.

#giantbombtryouts

I mean... they can't exactly just give away all those games for free to everyone with PS+, with no added cost to consumers in some way. I mean... they probably actually could, but it'd be a pretty crazy thing for a company that wants to take your money from you to do. If they weren't using this as an incentive for people to go out and get a new console, they'd probably just charge a separate fee for it. Or increase the price of PS+.

The whole PS5 launch has been a freaking nightmare here in Germany. It's like Sony (and the online stores) are actively trying to sell to scalpers.

I get it, COVID and all that, but the pandemic can't be an excuse for this. This whole situation is just FOMO to the max and its pretty disgusting.

I own most of the games in the PS Plus Collection and have pretty much zero interest in Bugsnax, but still, it would be nice to be able to obtain these things as a PS+ member. It would be nice to be able to get the console at all.

@senorsucks2suck: Or, you know, people can actually just have different opinions. I really really can't stand it when people try to force ridiculous ideologies onto other people to try and dismiss any opposing viewpoints, with absolutely no evidence other than your own warped worldview that anyone who might not agree is some insane toxic hivemind with no thoughts of their own. It's absolutely absurd.

Even though I disagree with OPs viewpoint on this matter he's certainly allowed to have his opinion. But man, fuck off with trying to dismiss any discourse as invalid just because people aren't on your side of the argument.

@superfriend: Bugsnax is separate from the PS+ Collection and can be redeemed on the PSN web store.

If I'm understanding this correctly (I don't have PS+), I think the compromise would have been: 'Hey, we're going to give all this stuff to PS4 PS+ subscribers over time, but not as a full collection'. That way you'd still get it all eventually but not all at that same time and not via one big premium 'collection'. Would that have worked for you, OP? If you're a long-term subscriber, you're not gonna miss out and it would be a bonus to what you receive every month anyway.

Let's face it: this would never have happened with Xbox. I could claim 'Games with Gold' titles for an Xbox One without even owning one. Two years later, when I finally did own one, I had a nice collection of games to play alongside my purchase of Halo 5 and Forza 6.

We've learned that Microsoft thought way more about their 'Smart Delivery' that goes beyond just a marketing tagline. It looks as if Sony rushed their approach in response to Microsoft, rather than actually try to make all of this work for everyone. All I've seen as of recent regarding the PS5 is negativity and a lot of it is to do with the lacklustre cross-generational integration.

@ahifi: There are a number of ways this thing could be structured to be more consumer friendly. Whether it would be staggered releases or whatever.

People in this thread don't seem to remember but this is actually how PS+ worked when it was first launched on PS3. There was a large collection of somewhat recent games that you could redeem (and of course online multiplayer was free.) It's absolutely economically viable for Sony, especially because they own the vast majority of the big games in the collection.

Using it to drive up frenzied demand for a product that is for all intents and purposes not actually available is bad for a number of reasons.

Part of the reason this is so absurd is that you actually could claim PS+ games online until now. You still can for games outside of this particular group, so you can claim Bugsnax without having a PS5 and even "normal" PS4 games without having a PS4 (though the number of people who currently have PS+ but no PS4 is probably quite low, even though there are reasons to do it.)

Part of the issue here is that Sony in general has been making its off console online experience much worse. They killed PS3 and Vita purchases in a browser, they killed the PlayStation online store wishlist, the new PlayStation web store sucks, and you can't even look up your purchase history online for some moronic reason. This feels like just another example of how Sony is regressing hardcore in web-based user friendliness, locking a lot of stuff to console only functionality (or even just removing it altogether.)

That's like saying I should be upset that I can't play some games on Game Pass because I don't have an Xbox One and only have a PC. The Playstation Collection is just extra games people may have missed when changing consoles or when they are upgrading from PS4 to PS5. It isn't bad or anything, and they never said it was gonna go away. All of those games, if not most, have already been on Playstation Plus already, let alone a deep discount many times.

@kaos_cracker: No because those are Xbox One games.

It's like there were PC games on Game Pass (not just games available on PC but the PC versions themselves) that you could only access if you had an Xbox One.

I can just imagine the amount of fuss PC gamers would raise if they were required to use an Xbox to give them access to some of their Game Pass PC games.

Game Pass for PC only also costs less than the Game Pass Ultimate that covers PC and console, so you save money by only getting the PC version.

So not like that at all.

they're trying to sell a new console and adding a sweetener to get people to buy. not giving you something for free is not anti consumer, it is capitalism. your problem is not with sony.

also you can claim bugsnax via browser, as has been noted.

@sizzlerxanadu: they're trying to sell a new console and adding a sweetener to get people to buy. not giving you something for free is not anti consumer, it is capitalism. your problem is not with sony.

@bigsocrates: 360 games on Gamepass cannot be played on an actual Xbox 360, so it’s kinda the same thing.

#couldntrunalemonadestand

@djredbat: I did think about that as I hit post, but I’m the sort of person that plays one or two games at a time and has had no trouble at all juggling games for the entirety of the PS4 era on a standard hard drive. And I’d wager people who horde games on aftermarket hard drives as you do are ultimately the minority of PS4/5 owners. But it’s totally a valid and even clever thing to do.

@navster15: #gamepassnoison360

Would you still be this upset if this was a precursor to a PS game pass, bigsoc?

@navster15: GamePass isn't available at all on 360. There are technical reasons for this (it would have required significant reworking of an OS on an old console in order to implement it) and it's an extreme edge case anyway because nobody is subscribing to Game Pass if they only have a 360, so it would really just be for people who want to run those games on a second console for whatever reason. But the reason that they're not playable on 360 is not arbitrary, it's that it would be a tremendous amount of work to make them playable for a tiny percentage of people who might use that functionality.

This is also, as I said upthread, in the context of Sony doing a bunch of other uncool things with their web functionality, such as removing wishlists and the ability to purchase (or even view purchasing history) on PS3 and Vita games from their web store even though that stuff is still for sale. It's like they're moving in anti-consumer directions in small ways to see what the reaction is.

@boynukem: I guess it would depend on the specifics. I'm not ultra upset about this as it is. I'm just calling out anti-consumer behavior. A lot of people are arguing that it's justified to incentivize people to buy the PS5, but Sony can't keep PS5s on shelves anyway and can't meet demand so if that were the case it would really just be about making money for scalpers.

I can certainly understand where you're coming from. Personally I don't have an issue with it as long as the collection remains available for a decent length of time. It feels very specifically designed to act as "here's what you missed if you didn't own a PS4" for people jumping in with the PS5. Half of the games on the list have already been PS+ games, and I wouldn't be surprised if most of the rest come to PS4 on Plus in the future also.

I'd also be more annoyed if they were removing a feature to add this, but it's an additional bonus on top of the standard subscription components. I was honestly surprised when I found out that they were playable on PS4 as well; that's actually the thing that makes it feel weirder. If they'd just said "games in the collection can only be played on PS5" that would actually have made it seem less of a strange thing.

@bigsocrates: You are the first person in this thread to use the word fraud. I was sympathetic to you initially (even if I ultimately disagree with you) but I think you need to relax a bit.

Pretty sure Bugsnax is available for like 2 months and the PS+ collection is a more long term thing beyond that.