PlayStation Plus is set to receive a serious makeover in June. Instead of offering a handful of average games a month, it will soon be a three-tiered system that gives you varying amounts of access to Sony’s immense back catalogue.
The basic tier, Essential, is the same as what you’re currently getting from PS+: online games, cloud storage, and two downloadable games a month. Subscribing to the Extra service means you’re able to download and play 400 “of the most enjoyable PS4 and PS5 games.” We don’t know how Sony has judged its most enjoyable games, but with 400 available, there’s still plenty of room for some stinkers.
Finally, the most expensive subscription is PlayStation Plus Premium, which adds 340 games from the PS1, PS2, PSP, and PS3 eras. The latter will only be available for streaming, but all others can be downloaded or streamed. This tier also adds streaming for PS4 games included in the Extra tier, and time-limited game trials for new and/or upcoming releases.
In short, the top tier is the big one. But it’s also the most expensive. This goes without saying really, the subscription that gives you the most stuff costs the most money. But in a world where we have to juggle Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, BT Sport, Spotify, Xbox Game Pass, Nintendo Switch Online, and probably a bunch of others I forgot, is PlayStation’s top tier worth £99.99 a year? That’s twice as much as PlayStation Plus currently costs, and many people may not be able to justify the cost. After all, if you have a PlayStation you probably bought most of the big first-party games when they came out, right? God of War is 15 quid second hand these days. The extra 35 quid is for Switch Online-esque ports of old titles? It’s a lot, even if you’re a big fan.
However, there’s a short-term workaround. In studying the fine print of Sony’s announcement, we found that PlayStation Now subscriptions automatically convert into PlayStation Plus Premium when it is released and PS Now ceases to be. "PlayStation Now customers will migrate over to PlayStation Plus Premium," the blog post says.
We’re not saying that you should all go out and buy a PS Now subscription immediately, but if you were planning on getting PS+ Premium anyway, a 12-month Now subscription costs half as much and will convert into Premium when the time comes. It seems like a no-brainer.
You could wait until nearer the June release date of Sony’s updated subscription service, but you run the risk of the company unlisting or removing the option to subscribe to PS Now with its forthcoming redundancy. For the time being, however, PS Now remains a big “50 percent off” sticker for all the bargain hunters out there.
TheGamer has confirmed that PS Now subscriptions are still available at the time of writing, and we’ll update this article if they are ever removed from Sony’s website or consoles.
I won’t lie to you: PS Now isn’t great. I couldn’t tell you many reasons to pick it up, were it not being changed into Sony’s Super Sub in three months’ time. But it is, so I will. If having access to Sony’s serious back catalogue is of any interest to you, then £50 isn’t a bad price. It’s as much as PlayStation Plus currently is, and how much the base tier will continue to be. If you were looking at any of these subscriptions, then investing in a year of PS Now up front is undoubtedly a good idea. The one problem you may run into is what happens if you already have, say, a year’s subscription due to PlayStation Plus due for renewal in, say, December.
Sony has not explained how multiple subscriptions will be managed or merged - there would be no point giving you subscriptions to two different tiers of the New PlayStation Plus. But I also can’t see the company offering any discount or refund for an obsolete subscription - that’s the peril of paying up front, I guess.
For those of you currently paying monthly, or who have a conveniently-timed annual renewal period, PS Now might just be the option to get half off PlayStation Plus Premium.