PlayStation Plus Price Hike: Is it time to unsubscribe?

The PlayStation Plus price hike is pushing some gamers to consider whether it is time to hit the unsubscribe button.

[Number1TailzFan]

I imagine more people will be going PC, especially now that UE5 games are struggling to run well being upscaled from just 720p on PS5.

[Jin_Sakai]

“I imagine more people will be going PC, especially now that UE5 games are struggling to run well being upscaled from just 720p on PS5.“

It’s a good thing the world doesn’t revolve around UE5 and other great engines exist such as Decima.

[Extermin8or3_]

with GPU's costing as much as they do? I dunno...

[fr0sty]

You only need to shell out the price of a PS5 to get one that can outperform one... and even then the performance won't be consistent from one game to the next.

[lucian229]

Frosty, that is pure bs lmao, a 500$ gpu isn't going to play anything very well 😂😂😂

[Astrokis]

@lucain
I can find a RTX 4070 for $499 right now new
On a game the PS5 averages 60fps at 4k it averages 90.
Ofc it’s the cost of the whole PS5, PS5 is the value here; but you said a $500 gpu wont play anything very well, not sure where you’re coming up with that

[Rocketisleague]

I didn't even build my PC, just bought it from a shop about 2 years ago for 1100 euro. Plays all the latest games fine. And guess what....the online? Its free dude. I've already spent what 2000 on the ps4, ps5 and online subs since 2010?

The PC is a once off payment, the consoles take a few years to catch up on cost..with this price hike its even closer.

Jesus, i've been paying for online since 2005 with the x360, ps3 came along with it a few years later. Wonder how much i've really spent paying just to play games online.

I play online games every day, and single player games whever they come out/finish them/never look back. But i'm pretty selective on both, only the highest quality games get played.

[BISHOP-BRASIL]

@Rocketisleague

You managed to spend less than two PCs on console gaming for 14 years? Dude you actually saved a lot of money with console, do your math again... Your PC won't stay relevant for even 5 years, you don't necessarily have to toss the whole thing away, but you'll be updating at least the GPU once (most likely twice) and other hardware multiple times in that time gap. If you want to keep the playing experience somewhat comparable that is.

PC games used to be dirty cheap (still are if you are a patient man) and that's where you can save some gaming on PC, but as a rule, it's not the economical route. A PC spec that runs whatever the current consoles are doing generally costs double the price of the console and will not be within spec for the same games for as long as the consoles do (you can "futureproof" and make your PC spec relevant for even longer than a whole console generation, but you'll be spending a lot more than double the price of the console and by the tail end of it's life it will be lagging behind significantly, because PC hardware changes every 6 months and optimization is a joke)

[milohighclub]

@frosty and what about the rest of the PC XD
CPU £400
Motherboard £300
PSU £150
Case £150
Cooling £50
Ram £100+

Plus I got a £3070 at launch and it's already outdated. If you're wanting to future proof these prices will be greater.

[shinoff2183]

Lol. Most people I imagine that have a ps5 or even and xbox would rather game on consoles. I know I do. More and more pc games have came to console over the last years. That tells me all I need to know.

As a consumer I'm not thrilled with rising prices but as an informed person I'd say it's long passed due for price increases. Game prices haven't rose in so damn long some of you weren't even gaming or alive yet. It's not a huge deal. I personally wait for cheaper games. Remember you don't always need the latest and greatest game. Everyone should have some sort of backlog. I haven't had the thought of damn I got nothing to play , most of the time it's figuring what I wanna play.

[fr0sty]

Careful, the master race is not pleased with your sensible argument.

[Extermin8or3_]

This. Ps plus was about 40 quid a year a decade ago. In that time here in the uk we have had several years of about 2% inflation followed by almost 3 years of increased inflation now certainly 2 years at or around the 8-10% mark. So actually an increase to 60 pounds a year for the base (about 30% increase) isn't actually unreasonable. Considering what you get in terms of monthly free games etc it's bit bad. The offering if titles on ps plus extra is great too for 100 pounds a year. Bow ps plus premium is the one I am uncertain about. But here is the thing; I never actually pay the full price for ps plus as there are sales snd other ways to get it considerably cheaper.

[Sonic1881]

It's back to the PS3 days for Sony 🤔

[Popsicle]

Precisely why competition is needed.

[anast]

If it were that cheap, everyone would turn their top-shelf PCs into couch cruisers.

[VariantAEC]

Not only cheap, but also more convenient. PCs are neither cost effective or convenient for gaming.

[ironmonkey]

Can you name those people?

[Abear21]

No and no and 720 what? PC is dead compared to console gaming. Too many work from home and are on that PC all day already. Adding a PS Sub to a $500 console doesn’t make me want to buy a gaming PC. This makes zero sense and those price conscious don’t default to more expensive options when we get squeezed.

[X-23]

That's a powerful imagination you've got there.

[itsmebryan]

Can someone please explain the price hike?
What are they adding? Games day and date? And on the same day Starfield launches? Maybe they thought since everyone is focused on Starfield no one would notice. 🤷

[Flewid638]

I have a PC and get more value from PS+ than GamePass. The only other subscription service on PC that was good to me was Ubisoft+ but that's only limited to Ubi games.

I'll gladly pay the uplift for PS+

[ApocalypseShadow]

I just find it humorous.

I've been single player for years. But most gamers will disagree with common sense.

They want bigger and better games with more detail, polish, etc. But don't want to pay for it. They want bigger and better offerings in subscription services but don't want to pay for it.

Told gamers years ago that paying for online will just make it worse where everyone would have to pay for it. And it happened because they didn't listen. Sony minimized it by giving games away each month. But gamers now demand more and bigger games for paying as little as $5-7 dollars a month when the games they get cost more than what they are paying. Add up the game prices for each months offerings from the PlayStation Store and compare it to how much you spend. What costs more? You just don't get to keep them with full ownership. Gamers have now become spoiled and greedy. You say companies want more. But so do you.

Tell gamers to wait for a sale and they bitch that they should be getting these things for almost nothing. Companies then decide to make money elsewhere to offset the millions they spent making these games. And gamers complain about that.

The rest of the gamers must not be of age to pay their own way because they neglect that inflation is affecting everyone. Including businesses. Sony has kept mostly everyone and not fired thousands like Microsoft and Facebook have. But those workers needs raises too to offset the inflation. Gamers don't care. "Sony's making money. Blah blah blah"

It's pretty interesting how 1st world gamers have a cow over something fun. (And I'm 1st world.) But not actually needed in their lives. Unless, they have no other source to entertain themselves and live on the Internet.

All gamers have to do is wait for a sale or do what I do: don't pay for it and play local multiplayer with friends or family. Which is actually just as fun. Can't always happen because friends and family move. But it is what it is. Pay for it which is not much compared to all those games prices added up. Wait for it because prices do come down or sales are offered. Or don't pay for it at all.

You do have a choice. But don't just blame these companies raising prices without the context of why. And look in the mirror as to what you unreasonably expect out of these games and services but don't want to pay. You wanted better consoles. And companies responded with consoles that do way more than when PS2 was out. You wanted bigger and better games and companies responded by developing and researching games to make things like Ghost of Tsushima or Horizon. You wanted better services and better connections to play online. Companies did that too. But you can't expect to pay little for it.

[isarai]

You act as if the tools haven't also improved to make all of that easier. The tools and software to help do all of that has become EXTREMELY streamlined and automated, so no, we really shouldn't be paying more for everything now vs then. Technology advances, that doesn't mean it gets more expensive, quite the opposite actually. But you keep believing that lie they spoon fed you, I'm not buying it.

[fr0sty]

As someone who uses those tools, they have only made creating such games possible, not easier. These games are still far more complex than they used to be, and that added complexity still takes a ton of time and money to create despite the tools that help make it possible for large teams to pull it off.

[anast]

I somewhat agree and anyone that seriously downvoted this comment is an idiot.

[Huey_My_D_Long]

Sure, Price increases all over the world, to where the inflation in the US is really low compared to the rest of the world, but lets cry about everything including PSN prices.

[Rocketisleague]

Its not that simple anast, its fine to make an average quality game. If you want to be the best every game is custom made in each department. To some extent. Has anyone actually tried making games in Unity here?

Just look at bethesda, their entire dev team is stuck building on creation engine or gamebyro or whatever monster that started out as.

Really, its always "Oh the engine doesn't have this particular feature or mechanic that makes or breaks our game", or out of the box things just aren't smooth.

One other thing is.....have you ever worked on a large software development team?

[Elda]

When technology advances of course it's going to cost more but paying that higher price can be consumer friendly or a bit too much. As time passes on it's definitely inevitable that the price of things are going to go up.

[Extermin8or3_]

What are you on about you fool. Video game developments is nore expensive than ever. Those tools cost money to develop. Moat bug games now take larger teams than ever before considerably longer than ever before to be made due to their complexity.increased resolution and such means increased costs aswell and much if the streamlining has been almost undone by advances in the games in terms of graphics and size etc. You would only have a point were devs still making ps2 era games in terms of graphical fidelity and controls/limitations.a

[CrimsonWing69]

This!

It blows my mind how people who have no clue what software people use for game design and how things like computer animation works and they talk as if they do.

I don't know what people think, but back in the day I worked in Maya and most everything is simple except when it came to MEL Scripting and even then it was an easier coding language to learn. Most of that was for visual effects and deformers (jiggle deformers, blend shapes, etc.)

Now, the tools are waaaaaay easier and things are even more streamlined when it comes to tools. Hell, I used to have to bake textures for environment creation and this was like back in 2003. Look up tutorials for environment design now... the tools are way more streamlines and automated.

@isarai, you hit the nail on the head!

[Fishy Fingers]

Reads like his inner monologue trying to justify it to himself.

Borderline unhealthy mate.

[Flakegriffin]

👅🥾

[Profchaos]

I was just talkin about this with a friend recently we were discussing how long game dev takes these days and how most of our ps5 collection is remasters and how we wish companies would just take a step back and target smaller scope games like the 6th gen stuff that would take 2 years max to Dev and release more experimental titles.

Seems like everything has to be a grand epic feature gaas and be built on for 5 years post release.

I'm not happy with the current state of gaming these days either tbh

[gold_drake]

i think everyone is aware of the rising costs, but if you raise the price by a whopping 30% .. that is alot and very unusual to see and people are allowed to be pissed

[S2Killinit]

Isn’t it still less expensive than the competition? I think they want to make sure gamepass price increase doesnt allow MS to claim their service is better. People have short attention span and they dont consider cost when comparing products.

[jwillj2k4]

I just want to be able to play online. I don’t need extra games. How much should that cost?

[Profchaos]

Realistically that alone should be an option similar to the NSO model which is 30 AUD per year we get old-school games with that so take those away I'm sure the service would be far cheaper again.

[Yi-Long]

You’re forgetting some important stuff though, like far more easily accessible tools for gaming development, far cheaper and more powerful hardware which speeds up development, etc etc, but I’ll just focus on 1 important aspect; The market.

The market for videogames is far FAR FARRRR bigger now than it was 15 or 30 years ago. Back then, you released an AAA title like Donkey Kong Country, or Metal Gear Solid, and when you were lucky enough to have a huge hit on your hands, it would sell well among gamers on that one platform.

Right now, there are simply far more folks into gaming these days, plus a lot more regions in the world have opened up to gaming, because they simply became wealthier and/or more modernized. Also, more big AAA titles are now often going multi-platform to begin with.

So you can claim “Oh, it’s become far more expensive to develop games these days”, which I’m sure holds some truth, depending on the game, so if you’re creating an epic AAA game with cinematics and expensive famous voice-actors, then yeah, it’s gonna cost money, but in many ways it has become far cheaper to develop games/content, plus there is simply a far bigger market, so there really isn’t a need for price-hikes across the whole spectrum of videogames.

Final thought; Also, this idea that everything needs to ve bigger, more epic, and thus more expensive, etc, is nonsense. Look at SSX3, arguably the absolute best snowboarding game ever.

If they’d do a new SSX, they’d probably wants to make it ‘epic’, with big changes which will sound interesting and refreshing in theory. Like they did with the SSX reboot.

Well, it didn’t need that. In fact, it was a spectacular failure because of it.

They should have just made a straight sequel to SSX3, so SSX4, and just expand/build on what made it great, so simply a new cool mountain, some new characters, some new tricks, new music, better graphics. That’s it. That’s all that needed to be, and as such, there’s no reason why that sequel would then have to cost more than the original SSX3 in terms of development-money, or the price we as customers pay.

In short; there’s no reason why videogames would ever ‘need’ to cost more than 60 bucks.
That’s simply a choice they make, where they believe it’s a price-point where they can get away with it.

Hell, I’m a firm believer that there would be far more Day 1 buyers and far less 2nd hand sales if they’d be a bit less greedy at launch and sell these games for 40-50 bucks, instead of 70-80.

[InUrFoxHole]

@Apocalypse
I'm just glad thus price hike will now bring day and date games.

[lifesanrpg]

"They want bigger and better offerings in subscription services but don't want to pay for it."

What big and better offerings did they announce alongside this 30% price increase?

[GoodGuy09]

This is such an odd and bad move. Considering mcsft just bought out activision as well, Sony really must have confidance in their live service lineup?

They should have an option for just online play for like $20-$30 a year like Nintendo.

If you mostly play online games, I highly suggest you get a PC.

[ApocalypseShadow]

As I said above, I'd like gamers to add up what they got this year in games. Compare the prices of what the games cost and how much on average they spent monthly for it. I'd bet they are spending less than what the games cost.

But gamers don't want to admit they are becoming spoiled and entitled. Or admit they demand more for the same or less money.

[shinoff2183]

Shadow,

👍

[maniacmayhem]

This is pretty amazing coming from you considering your very vocal stance and constant arguments against Game Pass and telling people GP devalues games, support the dev and so on. But here you are justifying a price increase with the same excuses others used for Game Pass.

[blackblades]

Na, I got deathloop for $5, HFW $15, kena $13 others under $10 or under $15. $ credits from the ps rewards old and new rewards. I mean I usually spend under $100 a year hell maybe under $70. Even subs I get for under $50 or $40.

[andy85]

I play a lot of games and mine was only £55-60 on sales day (when everyone should be buying their yearly) so I've saved a lot. Especially as Stray, Humanity and Sea of Stars were available day one on there (all fantastic games btw). The cost of those 3 alone is more than my membership cost.

[thesoftware730]

You say this, but do you feel the same way about GP?

[I_am_Batman]

"As I said above, I'd like gamers to add up what they got this year in games. Compare the prices of what the games cost and how much on average they spent monthly for it. I'd bet they are spending less than what the games cost."

Duh. Comparing the cost of games you chose to buy with getting conditional access to games someone else chose for you is ridiculous. Especially when they can change these conditions at any time.

Situations like these price hikes are a prime example why these kind of comparisons are nonsensical. If you decide to quit your subscription now or at any time in the future, you lose all access to all those games you've accumulated over years, just because you've convinced yourself that you're saving money by giving up ownership over your games collection.

[Amplitude]

I've probably thrown thousands of dollars down the drain for a bunch of games i can no longer play because of these subscription services. Very cool.
I used to feel this way too. "PS Plus (or Gamepass or Games With Gold) is so good look at all these free games! If i cancel i'll lose them but i'll never cancel i'm just gonna build my library for years!". You're ignoring the fact that when you buy a game, you own it and when you subscribe to a subscription service and get a game - you don't.

Switched to PC where online costs what it absolutely should - free. I no longer own any of those PS/XB games unless i support their BS ripoff paid online subscription service that constantly raises in price. Those games aren't free. The cost is that you need to remain a hostage to a monthly subscription, with the illusion of things that were, are and should be free (like lmfao connecting to a peer-to-peer multiplayer lobby) being included in the ripoff sub cost.

[fsfsxii]

Yeah play online on pc just to get doxxed and encounter hackers and aimbotters, no thanks.

[Rynxie]

You'll find hackers and aimbotters on consoles as well, as you no longer have to hack/jailbreak your consoles to cheat.

[Northpoint]

It's good ole Jimmy Ryan at the helm. It's been almost 4 years so hopefully they'll replace him at the end of this year after the big backlash from the community.

[purple101]

Deffo time to go cdkeys.com in the UK and get a £50 for £44. Spend it on a year psn 49.99. Quick.

=1year ps+ for £44.

You got 6days.

[isarai]

Honestly that's where I've gotten my last few subs at like $35

[purple101]

I normally pay £36 and year.

(That's £3 a month, and I get 2 games included, for that price. It is, quite literally, unbeatable value)

Can't find any cheap at the moment /only got 6days. Unless anyone got any ideas in UK?

[darthv72]

that's where i tend to go right before my sub is getting ready to renew. I have until 1/23/24 to find some good deals for PS+

[Mikeyy]

But isn't that website full of product codes purchased from stolen credit cards? That's pretty shitty.

[purple101]

Cdkeys legit

there are plenty of copycat websites that look the same and dupe people though

[andy85]

I wouldn't do that at all tbh. If you sub hasn't ran out anyway. On BF sales day you'll be able to pick up the extra membership for around £65-70. Even less if you use a cashback website. For the sake of 20 quid all those games are more than worth it.

[purple101]

You reckon? I use cashback also, so slightly less yes.

I may do that then. Mine runs out April next year.

Normally only play Gt7 and cod. You reckon the extra games worth it? Would I play them though hats the question

[andy85]

I got premium which was the same price as extra now is for around £55-60 on sale day. Obviously after buying cheap credit and cashback though. I mean it depends what type of gamer you are. I play a lot of varied ones, I think I played about 25 games off the list this year. They just added Sea of Stars to PS day one and that's £30 on its own. But it's a turn based game so not everyone's cup of tea. And obviously we got Stray and stuff like Humanity day one too. Its just worth the extra for me for the 900 game choice or so (500 on extra).

[ChasterMies]

No, it’s actually time to buy up as many years of PS+ as you think you’ll want before the price hike goes into effect. (I did that today.) Later, when you need to renew your subscription, then you should consider whether the price hike is worth it.

[potedude]

I have four years-worth of PS+ on my account. My assumption is that, because these are already paid for, they'll be valid, and I don't need to pay the additional price increase on top of them? Here's hoping.

[toxic-inferno]

That's how it worked last time they did a price increase, as I did the same. I intend to do the same this time!

[ChasterMies]

If you bought 4 years of PS+, your price won’t go into effect until 4 years from now, you can even “cancel” auto-pay now and keep your 4 years of subscription.

[fleshzombie]

Nah man, as a long time Playstation owner (PS5 & PSVR2) I dont think I'm going to sub once this year is up. I play mostly single player games, I have kept up the subscription for clould saves and occasional game to try out as an Extra member as I saw it as a reasonable deal. But I think this is where I get off this subscription train, stick to buying games when they are on sale, dust off the ole' PC and play any multiplayer games on that.

[ChasterMies]

I get it. More and more I think there was something right about owning a disc you could keep, sell, or trade. But more and more games are digital only. Eventually they will be subscription only.

[rippermcrip]

How do you actually do that at this point?

[ChasterMies]

I used the PlayStation app on my phone. Go to the store, PS+, and find the add to subscription link. Seems scary becasue I don’t want a second concurrent subscription it it won’t do that. You’ll get a new end date to your current subscription. You can do the same on your PS5 or the web.

[rippermcrip]

I currently have Premium through May 2024. Doesn't appear I can downgrade to Extra and then stack on that. Only gives me the option to stack if I stick with Premium. Bastards.

[sparky77]

I just can't understand a nearly 40% price hike, is Sony really that desperate for more money? Or do they think their player base aren't bothered and will pay whatever they say.

They should have done the increase in small increment this kind of arrogance for sure warrants unsubscribing 100%

[Christopher]

Subscription models are really expensive unless you reach an extremely large market with them. A lot of companies eat years and years of costs to hope to get to those market reach numbers. I think we're going to see price increases more and more over the next decade. People have to get paid and that includes the developers who are giving you the content. That's why Microsoft is smart about buying up strong IPs to support their subscription model. And, sadly, why we'll likely see more and more centralization of the market if things move more and more towards subscription models.

I don't hate Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo. I hate where people are letting these companies lead the market. It's not, IMHO, at all beneficial for the consumer and centralizes more and more of control than it should be. Just more big business being big business.

[VariantAEC]

Game Pass for PC is MS' cheapest option at $9.99/Month ($119.88/Year) and it is still 49.87% more expensive than a whole year of PS+ Essential.

PS+ Extra is considered the sweet spot for the service giving you more games and discounts as well as benefits that extend to other services like EA Play... PS+ Extra is $134.99/Year and in this case it's cheaper to get Xbox Game Pass for Console than PS+, which is $10.99/Month ($131.88/Year). Again that's $131.88/Year for Game Pass for Console vs $134.99/Year for PS+, let's not forget that PS+ Extra still offers more games than Xbox Game Pass for Console, which is Xbox's most complete tier as far as software is concerned.

If you have a PC and Xbox you can get Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for $16.99/Month ($203.88/Year) vs PS+ Premium which is $159.99/Year. For $43.89 less than Xbox Game Pass Ultimate PS+ users gain access to even more games, over 300 more games and counting.

Game Pass Ultimate offers the most flexibility on Xbox, but it offers no other games. Game Pass for PC offers less games than Game Pass for Console and Streaming offers even less games. PS+ also offers less games via streaming than playing on PS4 or PS5 and obviously using PS+ on PS5 offers the most complete experience with the service and the same is true for Xbox Game Pass.

If memory serves Xbox Game Pass prices also increased from the last time I looked at them, which I've commented about before on this website (N4G.com) and elsewhere.

Even so, Xbox only wins out in cost over PS+ if you only have Game Pass for Console and find PS+ Extra to be the best value for your money and even there the savings are slim amounting to a savings of $3.11/Year while offering fewer games than PS+ Extra.

All above prices are in USD and exclude all taxes.

[thesoftware730]

Yeah but you have to spend $70 for Sony first party games where on Xbox you do not...

[VariantAEC]

@thespftware730
Totally why Xbox also increased the price for Xbox 1st party games and now has pre-release purchases for full-price along with bog standard full-price pre-orders.

[VariantAEC]

@sosro
Which is exactly why PS as a company is profitable while Xbox is not. Xbox's revenue might be the best its ever been according to Phil Spencer, but Xbox isn't actually making money for Microsoft so far as I understand their annual and quarterly IR earnings reports.

[Orpheo]

My yearly subscription renews in October and it will be my final renewal. I don't do multiplayer that much, I'll just be losing access to my Plus collection of games. So, I aim to play through that collection over the next year for the $60 I'll be paying and end the subscription.

[I_am_Batman]

I unsubscribed a couple years ago. I did buy a month when Elden Ring came out, but I rarely play multiplayer so I don't need it.

[maniacmayhem]

Nothing stays the same price forever except Costco hotdogs. With that said, the question should be, are the Sony tiers giving us players the value it's being charged for? Is it better than the competition?

[fleshzombie]

I wont be getting the value once the price increases, I will not be renewing my subscription when its time to renew.

[Flakegriffin]

I 100% will be unsubscribing. I bought a year PS+ for $40 during Black Friday but only really use it for the free monthly games.

I see absolutely zero reasons to pay $80 a year. I’ll stick to my PC.

[VersusDMC]

And this black friday you can get it for 60...they have 25% off several times a year.

[Flakegriffin]

Yeah, I paid $40 for it because I didn’t see the need to pay $60 for it. So, this Black Friday I won’t be renewing it for $60.

$60 is a fair stopping point for many but when it doesn’t benefit me besides to play online, which I hardly do, then it doesn’t much benefit me.

[badz149]

welp...time to hoard the years, I guess. I renew every year but the only game I play online recently has been GT7 hahaha....but I guess the cloud storage is nice too (still scummy move for locking it under PS+). I think I just like the games they offer on PS+ Essential. I have never failed to justify the renewal fee over the course of a year so far and this year has been no difference (Sacboy, Mafia, Alan Wake, Dreams, Mass Effect, Biomutant, Hot Wheels and so many more!) Games are sold equivalent to USD here and are very expensive, thus I have saved a ton on games through PS+!

we are currently paying MYR159 ($34) yearly for the service BUT I almost always renew during Chinese New Year sales here where we can get it usually for the old price of MYR129 (I just checked that conversion to USD and it's less than $30 LOL!!) I'm good only until June next year, maybe I'll renew just for another year before the increase! dick move, Sony!

[MetroidFREAK21]

Yes

[anast]

I probably will. I don't have time to play every monthly game and I don't spend too much time on online games.

[Mikeyy]

Sony needs to dump Jim Ryan ASAP. This Clown will only snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

[Rynxie]

Sony's headquarters are in liberal looney California now. I don't think Sony Japan has any say anymore.

[Sgt_Slaughter]

The price hike is 100% a dealbreaker and fans should be voicing displeasure with this decision instead of being combative with people who disagree with it just because it's their brand of choice (somewhat of a theme here)

[VariantAEC]

I was of the mind that PS+ was too inexpensive compared to the competition which is often praised. PS+ Essential and Premium are still cheaper than Xbox Game Pass PC and Game Pass Ultimate respectively. Where Xbox wins out is with Game Pass for Console which is a whopping $3.11 less expensive per year than one year of PS+ Extra.

If people are upset by this, they should be equally upset that Game Pass for Console increased by $1/Month which again only makes it $3.11 less expensive than one full year of PS+ Extra with this new price hike (which go into effect next month).

[MetroidFREAK21]

I've already canceled my subscription so I voiced my displeasure and took action

[Profchaos]

I'll likely be reconsidering my top teir sub but I'm thankfully stacked a few years

[goldwyncq]

The only thing that could justify this absurd price hike is if they're planning to release upcoming first party titles like Spiderman for free day one.

[AdonisIsBeast]

Or acquiring a publisher with a lot of past and upcoming IP

[fsfsxii]

who gives two shits about that? bro really justifying his spending habits so a billion dollar corporation can acquire another billion dollar corporation as if they don't have enough money already. parasocial shit

[AdonisIsBeast]

@fsfsxii

No good sir, it would add value to their subscription. Very simple stuff here

[GameBoyColor]

It won't add any value to their subscription because sony doesn't drop first party titles onto their sub day 1. There is 0 benefit for the consumer here.

[MIDGETonSTILTS17]

This is because Xbox Live by itself jumped to $10/month…

[Mandingo2020]

I haven't been subscribed for a year now. Life goes on and there are other better options out there than what Sony has to offer.

[Majin-vegeta]

Spotify which is the biggest thing in the world when it comes to streaming, and even the people at Apple Music have to admit that, even Spotify has yet to turn a profit. You know it has continued to lose money every year. Because if you look at it people pay their subscription rate and then that money gets pulled together and the platform takes their run rate fee off the top off that, now you have a pool of money to distribute via royalties to people song gets played on that service based on how many times and for how long and whatnot and that ends up with these piles of nickels and to pay back for the cost of the recording of the song is one thing but to try to cover the cost of a 100 Million Dollar game development based on percentages of subscription fees, based over time of play against the model, it’s super hard, you can’t, you can’t get to 150 Million that way."

"That’s why all of these streaming platforms, in film content aswell, you know they pay upfront, they pay a huge minimum guarantee to the big titles to entice them to come across to that but still it’s almost impossible at the current run rate to make back your nut without some subsidy from the platform to help you get there and so how long can a subsidised platform continue to be successful, well it really depends on how big the wallet is that sits behind that platform and what their patience is around that."

"I think still under the current services, the platform itself whether be Gamepass or whether that be PlayStation Now I think because of all the different inputs those businesses have towards overall financial stability for their business, I think there’s a chance that those can turn at least neutral as far as the impact on the bottom line, but for individual developer who’s going to put down over 100 Million dollars into a project absent a subsidy to bring it across into a streaming service you’re going need a lot of subscribers, paying a lot of 9.99 a month to get enough nickels stacked up that somehow it reaches 100 Million dollars for you."

Shawn Layden

[northpaws]

I play online a lot so not a choice for me in that sense, but either way, my subscription ends next Aug, so Sony has a year to show me why I should keep paying for the Extra tier. Premium in the other hand still don't give me enough reason to subscribe.

[raWfodog]

If you don’t want to pay at least $80 for PS+ then you shouldn’t. It sucks whenever prices go up but the reality is that it’s inevitable. I’ve been paying $60 for the past 10 years and I’m surprised it lasted that long. I have two years banked up so I’ll have until then before having to pay the extra $20 (if I want to keep my access to multiplayer and all of those collected games).

[ichdich]

Is it time to unsubscribe

[ichdich]

Is it time to unsubscribe ,No Starfield either on PS5.

[VariantAEC]

Can no one on Earth do simple math anymore?
PS Plus essential is $79.99/year*
Extra is $134.99/year*
Premium (the maximum tier) is $159.99/year*

Xbox Game Pass is $16.99/month* with no annual subscription discounts making it $203.88/year*
(*All prices in USD)

PS Plus has more games than Game Pass and is still less expensive... in what world dose the service that offers less software and costs more money (that being Xbox Game Pass) a better value?
What the f••• am I missing here?

[Elda]

At least with GP you do get several newly released Indie & AA games every month. With PS + most of those games that are advertised every month are old with a possibility of 1 newly released Indie game something PS+ has been doing lately. A $20 to $40 a year increase is a bit much.

[SyntheticForm]

Agreed.

[VariantAEC]

Day 1 relseases on subscriptions are bad. Having all your huge AAAs available for pennies on the dollar is what's hurting that subscription models ability to turn a profit. Not enough people see value in Game Pass as is and MS shows us the know that by repeatedly offering GP for $1/Month even after they said they wouldn't. If people aren't subscribing for $1/Month to get StarField... how do they expect to get subscribers at $10.99/Month? GP is by and large not worth the money and many games are still not free on GP day 1 like Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon.

You should care that Xbox is creating a ridiculously wasteful subscription model that they intend to eventually profit from for a lot of reasons, if you can't see it after over 4 years of GP failing hard, I can't help you.

[Inverno]

I cannot wait to see subscription services absolutely bomb, they are getting ridiculously expensive. I only ever wanted to continue playing Factions on PS4, but Plus being a requirement killed my excitement for the PS4 when it was first revealed. Part of the reason I don't ever pay full price for games, why should anyone really when they only get access to half of it.

[Elda]

I won't be subscribing to Premium anymore. For me it was basically a waste of money because most of the games on the service I bought already. I will continue to sub for essential for online services & I'll do that on Black Friday when there is a discount.

[SyntheticForm]

Yeah, I'm definitely downgrading to Extra. It's not the money (though it is) but the principle. It's also unjustified in my opinion.

[HomoLuden]

Time to renew before the price increase !!!

[Good-Smurf]

Since I barely play MP games anymore and was re-subbed one month since I got PS5 I'd say yes I'm going to unsubscribe next month.
The price increase is quite big.
Getting old (compared to a 15 year old that is, I'm still young) and less competitve on video games saves me lots of money each month.
Time for that money to go fund my other hobby instead, namely Vinyl and Music collecting.

[Abear21]

You don’t have Starfield AND you raise the price? Weird business decision timing if you ask me.

[raWfodog]

I’m sure that they did it in response to game pass price hike, and somehow figured they were leaving money on the table by leaving that much of a gap between the two.

[EvertonFC]

Who writes this shite

[purple101]

Sony better hear this uproar and do a 50% sale. QUICK

[garos82]

they should have a super cheap tier for those who only want to play online.

[ocelot07]

I will be unsubbing I hate subscription services. Didn't mind laying the £40 a year and getting a few games each month. Got premium this year for a year as it was £72 as a deal. But £120 is just not worth it so I'll be dropping down to essential.

[Hedstrom]

My biggest problem with both PS and MS subscription is that MP is locked behind it. But i changed my PS+ from premium to Essential with this price hike.

[andy85]

That's a pretty steep hike (not as steep in the UK). Guess it's still good value if you buy it on sales day because theyve added loads since the Extra/deluxe service was introduced. Still...doesn't bode well for a good future if the hikes are that sharp. Certainly gonna have to add more value in there

[bRuud83]

I have the Extra tier till June 24, but I'll go a tier lower after that when there is a discount like Black Friday deals. . The price hike is ridicilous and I am actually barely playing any games frome the Extra library anyway.

[ModsDoBetter]

Just downgraded from top tier to essential.

Sony needs to be very careful not to be getting cocky again just becsuse they've hit a home run thus far with PS5 (despite lack of first party updates recently).

They're becoming progressively more and more anti-consumer. Paywalling wireless audio with PS Portal, the Dualsense Edge price point, stick drift issues, first party games price increase, all of the live service games they're investing in, console price hike, seemingly annual increases of PS Plus now with this new one being almost a staggering 30% increase across the board.

Jim's days are numbered.

[Abear21]

I’m considering Xbox for online gaming and using PS5 for what it’s great for, those single player experiences. Probably won’t pick one up until the dust settles after holidays. That’s what this price increase will put in many heads, especially with Starfield coming. It’s like Sony wants people to buy a Xbox for online gaming as many are considering right now if they don’t already own one. Just terrible timing for Sony on this one, literally makes no sense.

[ravens52]

Yup. Tf are you guys doing? Keep tempting me to go to xbox, atleast they announced some 1st party games. You guys keep defending Ryan, it's just going to get a lot worse. BS!

[DivineHand125]

I have to now give PC gaming a strong consideration after this move. I do have a gaming laptop with an entry level GPU but I may have to seriously think of building something more serious as Sony's success is making them more anti consumer.

I was mostly keeping my subscription for cloud saves, store discounts and the monthly games(which I don't play). Time to unsubscribe

[Abear21]

I wonder how many of Sony and Microsoft subs are sold for sale price versus full price? So now instead of $25-$30 on sale, we’ll be paying $40-$50 discounted instead. Not too bad imo. I’m up in December and won’t renew unless I can find a deep sale during the holidays. People freak out about pricing in this industry when we all know everything goes on sale at least a couple times a year minus hardware. All of us who truly live on a budget know and live by this—not sure these shouts at the clouds are heard or necessary and those journalists that “speak for the people” are handed free codes and rarely pay for anything.

[Harkins1721]

I'll only be getting PS+ on sale if that. If the new sale is $60 then I will probably be skipping out. Really only had it for Cloud saves. Been buying games super cheap on Steam over the years.

[REDDURT]

Fanboys will fanboy but the price hike is not justifiable z

[Chocoburger]

The fact that you can't easily do local save file back ups on PS5, and cloud saves are still behind a paywall is bullcrap, and with this price increase its even worse now. Make cloud saves free as a gesture of good will to the community.

[spicelicka]

Honestly the stupidest thing ever. I put in 10 hours Ghost of Tsushima on my cousin's PS5 while visiting him in another country, wanted to buy it when I came back to continue my progress and realized I couldn't back it up before I left. Not willing to start from the beginning again f*** this. At least allow backing it up in a USB ffs.

[Sitdown]

Or just wait and take advantage of discounts they give, like I did in the past, and stack. I'm good until December 2026 on Plus Premium.

[Crows90]

Yes it is time. Vote with your wallet. These corps can't actually raise prices if we don't let them.

I'm not adding more months to it.

[X-23]

This type of thing is inevitable, doesn't necessarily mean it's the right thing to do but it's always going to eventually happen. Microsoft is doing something similar with Gamepass price changes and not promising every title is being included on there in the near future like initially.
People have just become used to getting a lot for paying a little, but those kind of deals/bundles always end up dropping off in the end even when you remove the gaming element from the equation AT&T or Boost will offer you a key selling service price and maybe a year or three down the line suddenly change the price because that deal or contract is over.

The solution is to be more transparent and offer alternative pricing options for people who might not want all the extra bells and whistles and just want to retain online functionality. I personally play on multiple platforms, PC has been what I've been making most of my purchases on now recently, but I do let PS take money out for reoccurring billing monthly.
If you ask me they should have promised more along with the price hike, more PS2 Era games or the addition of PSP games.

[mastershredder]

Yes, it is time for YOU to unsubscribe. Child.

[GamingSinceForever]

I’m not unsubscribing due to the price hike, but I’m not renewing due to my lack of usage. There are a lot of games there that I just don’t have time to play.

[CrimsonWing69]

Well, I mean, it's an unfortunate time to just begin subscribing.

[1nsomniac]

One thing is pretty clear. This news has not gone down well. Sony really dropped the ball here and the public have really taken it badly.

I don’t know what they were thinking!

[Flewid638]

I been getting more value from PS+ than GamePass PC so I'll gladly spend the money.

[zachyBROosevelt]

Inflation is real people

[purple101]

Sony got their hands on a copy of Starfield,

proceeded to laugh... Proceeded to Raise prices 30%