PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium 2022 games: Was it a good deal?

PlayStation Plus Essential – as everyone used to call the good old PlayStation Plus – has once again put together an outstanding list of free games for subscribed players, and of course players will need to subscribe if they want multiplayer access.

But with the new Extra and Premium subscription service tiers introduced in June, it’s honestly hard to see where the value lies. And I say that as a PlayStation Plus Premium subscriber, which is mostly because of my work.

Nobody expects PlayStation Plus to mimic Xbox Game Pass; a copycat would be five years late to the party anyway. But even the sheer number of games available to PS Plus Extra and Premium members – most of which were inherited from the old PlayStation Now service – does little to enhance the PlayStation 4 and PS5’s add-on lineup to be competitive with that of Microsoft.

By the end of the year, PlayStation Plus Premium subscribers – the highest level of service – had access to more than 1,000 games. (About 450 of those are PS4 and PS5 games, which form the core of the service and are available to PlayStation Plus Extra subscribers. The rest are streamable classics from the PlayStation 3 generation and earlier.) That’s a lot of games, more than double what Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers currently have access to (thanks to the inclusion of the EA Play library).

But that’s also because Xbox Game Pass is curated and games rotate as new ones are added. PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium feels like Sony is using third-party help to throw things at the wall hoping something will stick. The problem is that everything gets stuck, making it nearly impossible for the subscription to have a popular game that gets noticed, let alone justify the $14.99 (Extra) or $17.99 (Premium) each month. PlayStation Plus Essential is still $9.99 per month.

Second is the fact that Sony is official that it will not launch any first-party games at the higher service tiers of PS Plus. That’s Sony’s choice for sure, but it’s also not like it’s pushing third-party providers to start on Extra or Premium. Straya console exclusive – and an acclaimed one, to be sure – is the only title to release on PS Plus Extra on the same day as its general release.

It seems odd that Sony would be such a holdout when day-and-date launches are perhaps the defining feature of Xbox Game Pass, and especially when PlayStation Plus Essential hasn’t had any issues with day-and-date launches over the years – straddles titles like rocket league to smaller indie games exclusive to the platform. PS Plus Essential even had two day-and-date PlayStation launches in 2022.

The deluge of games added to the two higher tiers of PS Plus – 240 in all – isn’t really worth analyzing in the same way we analyze the smaller collection of PS Plus Essential games. Not when data points like age (dozens are years old, if not a dozen) and whether the titles will be offered on other services (many have popped up on the old PS Plus over the years) are basically moot points anyway.

This analysis instead focuses on what PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium could be doing in 2023 to make for a more rewarding subscription, rather than what Sony hasn’t done in 2022.

Increase the value of PS Plus Premium or end it

The only real differentiator of PS Plus’ top-tier service is that subscribers can stream hundreds of games to their PS5, PS4, or PC — but most importantly, not to a mobile device like Xbox Game Pass Ultimate does. And the games that are only available to Premium subscribers — mostly PS3 and PlayStation Portable games that are at least a decade old — aren’t worth the extra $3 a month.

Sony Interactive Entertainment should either improve the streaming capability – at least support for mobile devices – or simply upgrade the streaming capabilities they have to Extra and do away with Premium. The extra level of service only adds to the confusion among customers as to what the new PlayStation Plus is really offering them. The generosity at the extra level could also boost subscription numbers.

Choose a star each month and stick with it

SIE’s approach seems to be to open up a wealth of content, while their Game Pass competitors take a more targeted approach. PS Plus Extra games in particular don’t leave the library, and of course that’s a value for the paying subscriber. But the new games added each month – the biggest opportunity Sony has to market PlayStation Plus – feels more like a theme week or overload than a buffet that guarantees you’ll like at least one thing.

For example: in addition to StrayAt the launch of Assassin’s Creed in July, four Assassin’s Creed titles were released – including The Ezio Collection, which are actually three games added to the PlayStation Plus Extra library. This is along with Marvel’s Avengers (a PS4 and PS5 game that launched in 2020) and Final Fantasy 7 Remake for the PlayStation 5. Then, in September, death loop‘s availability competed with Assassin’s Creed Origins and guard dogs 2.

It might seem surly ungrateful to complain about so many AAA games coming to a monthly subscription. But again, Sony’s shotgun approach doesn’t seem to work when it comes to differentiating PS Plus or telling players what unique value the service has. In November, the company told investors that was indeed the case lost approximately 2 million paying subscribers, although total revenue from PlayStation’s network services increased 10% this quarter. That means some people have opted for the pricier plans, but a 10% jump doesn’t sound like much to celebrate.

At the very least, gameplay additions should fall along clearly defined genre lines (a sports title here, a driving title there), rather than a flurry of open-world adventures drowning out a console-exclusive timing that was launched barely a year earlier.

Please reconsider the day-and-date launches

Sony seems pretty firm in its stance that first-party day-and-date launches won’t happen on PlayStation Plus. But they’re releasing a product whose customer expectations have largely been set by Microsoft over the past five years. That might be fine in a 2022 when Xbox brought little to the table – but the discrepancy will be a lot more glaring in 2023.

If Sony doesn’t want to pull a title from its in-house developers, or if it can’t convince another major publisher to go along with it, that is indeed their business. But Sony will then have to settle for the fact that most of its subscribers are only at the PlayStation Plus Essential tier, as most appear to be in late 2022.