When Sony’s remastered version of PS Plus starts in June, the most expensive tier costs twice what you are currently paying. But there’s a way to halve that: if you can get a year of PS Now now, you can temporarily get the new service at a lower price. Unfortunately, it seems harder than ever to secure this year, perhaps because Sony is being circumspect about people’s attempts.
First announced last month, PS Plus 2.0 (note: not the official name, just my nice touch to make the entire shift more digestible) is Sony’s reimagining of its monthly (or yearly) subscription plans. In all respects, the redesign folds PS Plus, the subscription required for online gaming, and PS Now, the games-on-demand service, into one subscription available on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5. It is available in three tiers:
- PS Plus Essential is basically the same service as the current PS Plus. That costs $10 a month or $60 a year — the same price PS Plus is currently l isted at.
- PS Plus Extra is the same as PS Plus Essential but offers access to a library of 400 downloadable PS4 and PS5 games and costs $15 per month or $100 per year, competing with the similar game’s monthly price tag Microsoft passport service.
- PS Plus Premium, the highest tier, offers all the benefits of the bottom two tiers but adds a backlog of 300 games of streamable and downloadable games from previous generations. (Here you can refresh the specifics.) That’s $18 a month or $120 a year.
- Regions that don’t allow streaming can subscribe to PS Plus Deluxe, which offers similar benefits to PS Plus Premium at a supposedly lower cost, but Sony is yet to announce specific price points.
Continue reading: The new PS Plus isn’t a Game Pass, but that’s okay
If you are currently subscribed to PS Plus, Sony says Your subscription will automatically convert to PS Plus Essential. But those who have signed up for PS Now, at least in the US, will see their subscriptions convert to PS Plus Premium. A month of PS Now currently costs $10 ($8 less than the premium plan). Meanwhile, a year costs $60 ($60 less than the premium plan). As a result, players with some players are buying up annual PS Now subscriptions in bulk allegedly stack
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Note that this workaround is a bit wonky at the moment. One of my colleagues was able to buy through a year a direct link to the PlayStation Store (Hat tip to the venerable spotter for gaming deals Wario64). Another had trouble completing a purchase. Going directly through the PlayStation website takes you to a page where PS Now is only available in monthly installments, currently priced at $10. Big box retailers, like GameStop and AmazonShow annual subscriptions listed as “currently unavailable”, although you may have better luck with third-party sites.
Sony seems to have been predicting this move for some time. As noted through EurogamerSony has quietly removed the annual PS Now subscription offer from its website. VGC reported Back in January, brick-and-mortar retailers in the UK stopped selling physical cards for PS Now subscriptions.
Sony did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
