Topic: What's your opinion on PS Plus discounts?

Recently purchased a PS4 and I'm wondering if PS Plus is worth it. I don't care about the free games since I would only be able to play them for as long as I kept my subscription. Online gaming is interesting, although I won't play online a lot. Discounts on games, on the other hand, is a very attractive feature, hehe.

Are the discounts good? How often are they offered and for how long? Also, do they offer discounts on any games or is it more aimed at indies?

Thanks! =)

I haven't been impressed by the 'free' (not really, once the PS Plus subscription runs out you lose access) games for a while, but honestly I'd sign up for Plus for the discounts alone. I think they're great, I've saved a ton of money. Last year I got Battlefield: Hardline I think for $5.99. I've seen The Order, R&C and other games for $7.99. It's definitely worth it.

They're great.

To me the discounts are best part of the service.

Yeah the discouts are really the best part, especially when they allow for external hardrives here soon. As for how often they have sales every week and every so often they have whats called a Flash Sale which usually are over a weekend.

Thanks for all the answers, guys! =)

I decided to subscribe so I could get the discounts, but then I found out there's a "14 days trial" available for my account. So, instead of paying for a subscription, I activated the trial and got some really good discounts.

Just bought Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition, Watch Dogs, Mortal Kombat XL, Bloodborne and AC: Syndicate and paid the price of a single recently launched game! That's really excellent! Granted, there's another sale going on around here so I just got a bigger discount using PS Plus.

Another question, I noticed that Little Big Planet 3 is free this month; if I get it for free, can I eventually buy it when a discount comes up, so that I'd be able to play it even after PS Plus expires?

@RenanKJ Nope if you download a PS+ free game you can't buy it while your sub is active if you try it just says download again. Once your sub ends I don't see why not but I can't answer for certain as I never ran out my sub.

Yep - discounts are the primary reason I have a subscription, then PS Plus, then MP (for me at least). I know that in 2016, I probably saved close to the yearly sub cost on the additional discounts.

Personally, I think this is a better model in a way then the free games. Flash sales and weekly deals that massively lower the price of games is a big enticement.

@RenanKJ I'm pretty sure you can't buy the game even if your subscription ends.

I recently bought DariusBurst Chronicle Saviours on Vita for £12 - that's discount of £28, Almost the price I paid for psplus!

Amazing game, has me absolutely hooked. Combined with some additional discounts on Ratchet and Clank and The Witness I've done pretty well recently off psplus discounts.

@Tasuki @johncalmc I guess I'll be careful about which games to get for free, then, hehe. That's too bad, though...

Apparently, everyone is enjoying the discounts, haha. Weird how PS Plus is always measured by its free games while the discounts are actually its best feature imo. I don't know if the games on sale are the same on every region, but if that's the case, perhaps Push Square could have a weekly article about which games are on sale.

@RenanKJ Um Pushsquare does. It's usually posted on Tuesdays when the sales go live.

@Tasuki Sorry, I meant games with discounts, hehe. I believe PushSquare has a weekly article about new games on sale that week, right?

@RenanKJ They usually do a sale article as well not just on new games buts what on sale.

Great incentive. If you buy a lot of digital games, you easily save the price of the Plus subscription with the discounts alone.

@Tasuki How did I miss that? Haha. Thanks for the heads-up!

@Mahe Ever since the announcement of external HDD support coming to PS4, I've decided to go digital only this generation. Good to know Plus pays itself in discounts. =)

@Mahe That really depends on how many games you buy. Even non-PS+ subscribers are able to buy games in the sales and often the saving for PS+ members is an additional 10% so often the advantage of being a subscriber equates to £1-2 at most extra saving. If you buy PS+ purely for the discounts, it would take a LOT of purchases to get your money back. Often the AAA Digital Sale Price is more expensive than the retailers current price (I know there are a few exceptions here and there) so whilst you are 'saving' some money over the digital prices and an 'extra 10%' by being a PS+ subscriber, its still more expensive than buying the majority of Physical editions. If you buy a lot of digital only games, you often only save 'pence' over non-subscribers so would have to buy a LOT of these games to make up the subscription cost

What people seem to forget, is that non-members are also able to buy games in the sale. A game that was sold at £55 but reduced to £25 in the sale is not saving you £30 by being a PS+ member as that price is offered to non-members. As a PS+ member you save 10% which in this case would be £2.50 bringing the cost down to £22.5. An indie game at £2 (sale) is £1.80 to PS+ members - saving you 20p by being a Subscriber. Overall you would need to spend about £33-34 a month on Sale games to break even. Going digital only though, chances are that over the course of a year, you 'could' save money in the long run.

As you can see, it would take quite a lot of games to make up the £40 a year charge. Of course PS+ also allows you to play online and gives you access to free games every month too so overall its not bad value.

@johncalmc @renankj Just to clear up the buying games you got on Plus if your subscription lapses, I've just checked as my sub ended a (good) few months back and you can buy them if you want, it is only during your subscription that games will not be available to buy. Pretty sure it has been like that since the PS3 days too, still a bit silly that you can't buy games in your Plus list while you are subscribed though.

@Dichotomy Why would you buy them when they're available for free though?

@Dichotomy At least they can be bought, but it's silly Sony won't let us buy them while PS+ is active.

@Octane Mostly so you can play the games if your PS+ expires and you don't intend to subscribe again for a while. If Sony allowed the games to be bought when your PS+ was active, you could pay less when a discount came up instead of full price.