There was no bombshell. The long-awaited revolution of the new PlayStation Plus, a service whose seams had been showing for a long time -and not only in comparison with its direct competition-, has turned out to be just what we expected.
The statements about the commercial suicide of putting new games in a subscription from the first day had already put us on the track of what would finally be the new playstation plusand what was announced during the last few hours has ended up showing that we were not very far off the mark.
But between approaching Xbox Game Pass of Microsoft and creating an equally exciting path of its own, Sony has decided to stay in no man’s land. By price and by catalog, Playstation Plus It is far from being the best possible version of the service.
A catalog without big surprises
Many games. That seems to be the great asset of a service marked, at least right now, more by the numbers than by their attractiveness. On the table there are more than 700 games, yes, but we do not know which ones will be included beyond Death Stranding, God of War, Marvel’s Spider-Man, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Mortal Kombat 11 and Returnal.
If you already have those, and more than likely if you come to Sony’s consoles primarily for their exclusives, the next most eye-catching thing is everything, in small print format without too much fanfare, landing on the service sometime before June. .
It is easy to get an idea of what is to come, of course, after all, this is still a facelift intended to unite PS Now and PlayStation Plus Collectionbut without even worrying about the price we are already several steps below what, in the best case, we could have received.
Where is PS Vita? Or downloading games from PS3 for those who do not have a good connection or access to that possibility? Or the big third party names that, in the absence of those exclusives that will not arrive on day one at the service, can put a patch to plug that gap?
A price that does not fall in love
In one of those moments in which the easy thing was to hit the table with bombastic advertisements that would blur any type of lack, the main stage has been dedicated to what could generate the least enthusiasm among the public: the price.
|
Service |
Free Games Every Month |
Online Multiplayer |
Exclusive Discounts |
Saved in the Cloud |
Advantages |
Extra Advantages |
Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
PlayStation Plus Essential |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
|
|
PLAYSTATION PLUS EXTRA |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Includes all the benefits of the Essential level. |
|
|
|
PLAYSTATION PLUS PREMIUM |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Includes all the benefits of the Essential and Extra levels. |
|
|
In the absence of an overwhelming list of specific games or dates to mark on the calendar, the most striking thing about the announcement of the new playstation plus They end up being those 100 dollars a year, or more, that you will have to pay to have a better service than you already enjoyed. Or get worse with fewer free games each month.
120 dollars per year, or 17 dollars per month, seems excessive to me for a shot of nostalgia supported by years of underestimating the concept of backward compatibility because, according to Jim Ryan himself “who would want to play that?“.
Forgetting the sum of all the games that you end up buying at the end of the year – let’s put two more launches at 70 cucas so that the equation goes quickly to the fret – it would be radically easier if there were more information about Sony’s general plans when dealing with the service.
Too many doubts for a very saturated market
Ok, they will not arrive on day one, but when will they? Will we have to wait a year? Half-year? Will all games make it to the service at one point or another? Will there be third party day one releases on PlayStation Plus?
At a point where the sum of monthly subscriptions is poised to burst the bubble, adding yet another to the mix should come with an offer so juicy it’s impossible to refuse.
I have already fallen into more than one reduced price subscription precisely for being able to enjoy that trick and, over time, in the end I ended up unsubscribing because it didn’t even compensate me for that margin compared to normal subscriptions.
It was not particularly complex to find entrance doors that managed to make up the comparison and, incidentally, put honey on our lips. Time would take care of deciding if it really compensated us or not, but at least we would have put our foot in it.
On the contrary, what we have are too many doubts in an investment that, far from surprising or falling in love, He has known us little by little -except in the price-.
