PlayStation Plus updates
At the start of the year we started to get some leaks regarding what was code named “Spartacus”, which was later revealed to be the new and improved (I guess improved is up to you to decide) PlayStation Plus+. Well, earlier this morning, PlayStation gave us another look into what we can expect to see when the updated PlayStation Plus tier system hits our consoles in just a couple of weeks.
As reported, there is going to be three tier systems for the new and improved PS+: PS+ Essential, PS+ Extra, and PS+ Premium. They each have their pros and cons (which you can see in this lil handy dandy table):
| Tier | Monthly games | Game Catalogue | Streaming | Classic Games | Game Trials | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PS+ Essential | YES | no | no | no | no | $10 |
| PS+ Extra | YES | YES | no | no | no | $13 |
| PS+ Premium | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | $16 |
What PlayStation hadn’t confirmed when they announced these tiers, was just what was going to be included in the games catalogues for players. Well, now we finally know, because Sony has gifted us a small selection of what players will be able to download and play or stream, depending on what tier you go for.
Starting off with the PS+ Essential tier: you get not real bonuses. This is literally just the normal PS+ as we all know and love it, where you get to access the PS+ online servers, get 3 free games each month to download and keep (so long as you keep your PS+ subscription), and additional discounts in the PS Store.
The PS+ Extra tier is where players are going to start seeing some real bonuses. Players that subscribe to the Extra tier will get access to both first and third party games which they can download to their consoles and play for as long as its on the service. Now keep in mind, that this following list is just some of the games that we’ll get access to, and as stated on the PlayStation Blog post, the full list will be posted to Playstation.com closer to the services actual launch. Some of the games you can expect to see include:
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Moving on, we’ve got the third and final tier, the PS+ Premium tier. With the premium tier, players will get access to a bunch of popular classic PS titles from across the years, going way back to the original PlayStation. Some of these include:
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Now I haven’t included the list of the streaming games that are also included in the PS+ Premium tier, because unfortunately we don’t get access to that service here in Australia. But what we will get (along with everyone else who gets the Premium tier), is access to the time limited game trials. We did just talk about these on the podcast not too long ago, because it seems like Sony is making everyone that wants to release a game on the PlayStation in the near future is going to also need to submit a game trial to go alongside it. So we can assume this list will grow in size exponentially as time goes on:
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Now, the big question is: is it all worth it? Well at the end of the day, thats subjective. What seems like good value for me, might not seem like good value for you. Me personally, I’ll probably jump up a tier to the PS+ Extra tier. There are a couple of games on there that I am still yet to get to (that pile of shame is growing by the month), and I feel like the girlfriend will also get a kick out of a bunch of the games that are on there. At the moment, I am paying month to month for PS+, which is $11 a month, so the extra $2 seems worth it to me to get all those extra games. Anyways, time will tell how Sony handles the new tier system and how players will react. All we can do now is just sit back, relax, and see how it all pans out.
