Sony finally got around to announcing the inevitable move of PlayStation Plus onto Vita earlier this year, and it’ll finally go live on November 19 with a slew of free games to entice people onto it.

Those games, increasingly a huge incentive to pay up for Plus, are nothing to sniff at, either:

• Uncharted: Golden Abyss
• Jet Set Radio
• WipEout 2048
• Gravity Rush
• Tales From Space: Mutant Blobs Attack!
• Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions (PSP)

The arrival of Plus on Sony’s portable comes alongside its big 2.0 firmware update, which introduces a slew of new features. The full list, courtesy of Sony:

• Send, read email from a Vita
• Wirelessly transfer content between a Vita and PC, browse folders on PS3/PC to copy them to a Vita
• Ability to assign controller buttons to touchscreen, rear touch pad and buttons "with select games," and a "custom screen mode" to adjust screen sizes
• Option to tweet web addresses

Plus is $17.99 for three months, and $49.99 for a full year. When and if your Plus subscription lapses, the free games you acquired during that time are no longer playable. If your account is activated again, they’ll come back online.

Sony finally got around to announcing the inevitable move of PlayStation Plus onto Vita earlier this year, and it’ll finally go live on November 19 with a slew of free games to entice people onto it.

Those games, increasingly a huge incentive to pay up for Plus, are nothing to sniff at, either:

• Uncharted: Golden Abyss
• Jet Set Radio
• WipEout 2048
• Gravity Rush
• Tales From Space: Mutant Blobs Attack!
• Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions (PSP)

The arrival of Plus on Sony’s portable comes alongside its big 2.0 firmware update, which introduces a slew of new features. The full list, courtesy of Sony:

• Send, read email from a Vita
• Wirelessly transfer content between a Vita and PC, browse folders on PS3/PC to copy them to a Vita
• Ability to assign controller buttons to touchscreen, rear touch pad and buttons "with select games," and a "custom screen mode" to adjust screen sizes
• Option to tweet web addresses

Plus is $17.99 for three months, and $49.99 for a full year. When and if your Plus subscription lapses, the free games you acquired during that time are no longer playable. If your account is activated again, they’ll come back online.

Argh, US gets more/better games this time. EU doesn't get Wipeout, FF or Jet Set Radio.

Still, I'll finally have some games to play on the damn thing.

Plus is so worth it. $50 for all this great stuff. Good on Sony for pushing hard on the Vita Plus front.

It'll be nice to finally be able to play Uncharted on the Vita, glad I kept putting it off now. Also Gravity Rush was a pretty good game so hopefully this will get more people appreciating it.

Thanks for the push for me to own a Vita,Sony!

Patrick couldn't really see if this was clarified in the article but I'm curious. If I already have a PS + subscription for PSN on the PS3 does it carry over to the Vita or do I need to pay the $50 for a year again?

@Neurotic: Apparently JSR is going to be added to the EU list a week after it launches or something, according to one of the answers on the EU blog.

@Devise22: It is included in your subscription. No need for us to pay double. :)

Well shit, looks like I might be getting a Vita and PlayStation Plus.

@Devise22 said:

Patrick couldn't really see if this was clarified in the article but I'm curious. If I already have a PS + subscription for PSN on the PS3 does it carry over to the Vita or do I need to pay the $50 for a year again?

The impression I get is one PS Plus account works on both PS3 and Vita.

Plus is such a great feature. I hope Sony keeps it up, I think they're laying a lot of great foundation for their next generation consoles.

if my PS+ account does come over to the vita, i might finally buy one.

Is it possible to play games that you've acquired through PS Plus offline?

@Devise22: One subscription covers 2 PS3s and 2 Vitas, no need to pay twice.

But... I don't have a Vita! Damn.

@Devise22: I know they said the Plus sub would be cross-platform, but I can't remember if that was going to be delayed for a couple of months or not.

@ArcadiaExeter said:

if my PS+ account does come over to the vita, i might finally buy one.

It's the same account so yes.

Goodbye Xbox Live.

Hello Playstaion Plus.

@Devise22: It carries over. One subscription is all you need to get the service on both PS3 and Vita.

Thanks guys. This is a fantastic deal then. Even just for subscribing for the year you end up paying 50 dollars to get Infamous 2, Little Big Planet 2 for PS3 and Golden Abyss and FF Tactics for the PSP was a great game.

Plus isn't positioned to take over any consumers from Box live right now, but heading into the next console cycle if Sony can get an online service that rivals or is better server wise and feature wise in regards to it's online as well as offering it for free with some type of subscription service for games as it is offering now, it could easily dethrone Box Live as the go to online experience for consoles.

This makes me incredibly happy, just for the fact that Gravity Rush alone is on there. I own everything on that list but GR and Jet Set Radio(oooooooooooooooo), but I've been wanting to play GR since it came out. Hopefully the quality keeps up with PS+. The fact that all of this is under the same sub as the PS3 is pretty incredible, too.

@Zanetsu: Yeah, it'll probably come when the PS3 version does. I was really only complaining about Wipeout and FFT. I wanted those. Bu whatever, Gravity Rush seems interesting and some other thing, Chrono...something or other (not Trigger or Cross, sadly) could be cool.

Now just drop the price of the Vita and the memory cards and I'm in.

That's a pretty nice lineup of free games for plus, I'm tempted to subscribe... But I also just bought a 3DS.

@Neurotic: Chronovolt, a marble madness style game from Playerthree. Looks pretty spiffy, and if EU Vita Plus functions anything like the PS3 one, it'll be getting new content more frequently than the US.

Here is hoping I can find a Black Friday Vita deal....

@Zarile3 said:

@Devise22: It carries over. One subscription is all you need to get the service on both PS3 and Vita.

I was just about to ask this because I don't think it was mentioned in the article. Thanks.

Damn, now I have to buy a Vita.

@Yanngc33: Could someone please answer this?

This and Persona 4 have made me happy I purchased a Vita.

This makes my decision to get a vita for Persona 4 just a little bit easier.

@procrasturbate: Yes it is possible. How it works is when you are logged in it updates the "Expiration Date" for the content, as long as that "Expiration Date" hasn't been met the content works online or off. If the content does meet the expiration date you only need to go online again for the "Expiration Date" to update. As always if your PSPlus subscription has lapsed the content will be unavailable until you resubscribe.

@Yanngc33: If it works like PS3 Plus, yes. You can play them online or off as long as you are a plus subscriber. However, once you let the subscription expire, you can't play any of them anymore. You never really own the games you get free from plus - it is more of just an indefinite rental, which, for the price, is still pretty cool.

Also, if you resubscribe later on, you get everything you previously had back again.

Hmm...

HMMM....

Now I'm curious.

Sony makes a real case for giving them $50 in comparison to what you pay $60 for over at Microsoft.

Oh cool, that means i don't have to buy U:GA or Gravity Rush.

Fuck, I don't want to feel obligated to play Unchated VITA, that game looks like shit. Everything else looks good though.

Shit, I just bought a Vita and Gravity Rush. Well, all those other games are pretty good. Was thinking of buy FF: Tactics.

I only want to play Virtue's Last Reward. None of those games interest me. I really shouldn't have bought a Vita at launch...

I'm glad my stupid purchase of the 32 gig stick is going to pay off

This is nice. I hope that I can purchase these through my PS3 so that I have a library of stuff for my Vita when I get it.

@jakob187 said:

Sony makes a real case for giving them $50 in comparison to what you pay $60 for over at Microsoft.

XBL has become a total joke in comparison to the pure awesomeness of PS Plus.

This is great, because I wouldn't play Uncharted or Gravity Rush otherwise, but I gotta feel bad for dudes who shelled out the $50 to have that shit day one. Also real gangstas have had the PSX version of Tactics on their Vitas since the start.

This makes Black Friday Vita deals awfully tempting.

Awesome, the Vita and PS+ just keep getting better and better.

EMAIL CLIENT!

@NekuCTR said:

Fuck, I don't want to feel obligated to play Unchated VITA, that game looks like shit. Everything else looks good though.

Golden Abyss is a better Uncharted game than Uncharted 3. Golden Abyss was also pretty good.

Looking good Sony.

Damn! This is awesome! I regretted buying Uncharted in store and I wanted a digital version Now I'm getting one. :D Time to take the plunge and buy that big old 32GB memory card.

My Xbox is looking less and less appealing... too bad all my friends still play it non-stop.

Not that I was really regretting it before, but the Vita definitely seems like a worthwhile purchase with this.

Psn plus is getting crazy value more than it already was, its kind of nuts how they can just pony up a bunch of games for free that are already still recent and full or near full price games even if it is they;re own stuff. Granted allot of people do need a reason to buy a Vita so it needs every push it can get with the lack of other things making it look like a must have platform.

@Yanngc33 said:

Is it possible to play games that you've acquired through PS Plus offline?

Yes. Once you download the game it puts an expiration date on it for when your plus subscription runs out. There is no need for it to do an online check every time you go to play a game.