Topic: PlayStation Plus | OT |

@CaptD Yes, it has been a fairly universal outcry. I do think Sony may be feeling the heat from this, but they continue to rock in sales though as PS5’s are flying off the shelves. You’re right about a strong Xbox (and also Nintendo, to a lesser degree) is a good thing to put pressure on Sony to stay competitive. I think GamePass has been having decreasing value as well, higher fees and lower quality output. So Sony seems to be following suit.

But yeah, the international pricing is unbalanced, especially with the lack of taking into account the inclusion of VAT over there as opposed to the addition of our taxes at the point of purchase. So there’s an additional 8-10% added when we check out in the U.S.

Furthermore the British VAT is actually 20%, isn’t it? So it you you take that into account, then to know what Sony actually makes from each sale you subtract 20%. So in the example of the PS+ Extra (easy to use this as an example because of the round number) UK players will pay £100 but Sony only receives £80 and the UK government gets £20. Whereas in the US, we pay $135 (£106) all of which goes to Sony. The government’s share is added later. So Sony makes £26 more per subscription from the US consumer.

And I know to an extent it’s not always apples to apples as far as living in the US vs UK or Europe, obviously. And we can’t account for all economic variables. But as a US consumer I can’t help but feel like I’m subsidizing because the VAT is so high, which has nothing to do with me. 😅

@Thrillho Yeah, I also top off my sub during sales. Usually I’ve got a year for $70-80, which as you say is typically around 20% discount. But since the price is going up 35% I reckon topping off now will still be cheaper than the BF sale price in a few months. (Again speaking as a U.S. customer. I think y’all’s price increase is closer to that 20% mark)

@Th3solution
I don't know about the subsidising aspect but I do think other regions are much worse done by then the UK, in this instance. The reason I mentioned the regional pricing was to highlight the inconsitencies with their pricing, when games went to $70 they went from £50 to £70 for us limeys and from €60 to €80 for those in the Eurozone....their pricing structure is all over the shop.

@KAIRU Totally agree.
I do enjoy Extra but if it wasn't for having to pay for Essentials then I wouldn't be subscribed at all

Oooh it is really serious now, it has even made it onto Sky News...
https://news.sky.com/story/cost-of-living-latest-sky-news-blo...

Well count me in as another who will definitely be downgrading their subscription. I was subscribed to PS Now before it became part of PS+ and as part of the move got put on PS+ Premium. As I haven't really been making the most of it I actually planned to move down to Extra when my renewal comes round in Nov.

I usually buy a year when Black Friday comes around as it's typically been the cheapest time to get it so passed up the opportunity to get a discount during the days of play sale, mainly because I can't stack a year of Extra whilst I have an active Premium sub. I was basically going to let it lapse and then pick up a year of Extra at a discount however now even with a discount that will be the same price as if I renewed Premium now.

So I'm pretty much thinking why the hell wait till November to pay the same for a year of Extra as I would be paying to renew Premium now, and in fact as I feel that it's taking the pee a bit I'm just going to not bother with Extra at all and drop down to Essentials with a Black Friday discount and then just go back to buying the games I want to play in a sale at some point. Shame really as I thought their pricing was pretty good up to this point, and really I can't imagine their costs have increased by as much as these price rises suggest. Happy to be proved wrong if they suddenly start to put bigger games on the service but I can't see that happening.

Given the Jim Ryan era history, the prices will go up and nothing will change for the service. Similar, if you like, to the £30 increase in the price of a PS5 that we were forced to suffer in the UK.

I'm on PS+ Extra til Dec 2024 so I'll check out the lay of the land when that approaches. I've loved the PS experience from the original up to and including the PS4 but The Tub o' Lard (my PS5's system name) just leaves me cold. Booted it up the other day, got depressed by the vile UI and turned it off again!
My Pro on the other hand with the PS2 theme just welcomes me every time I start it up.

There was an interesting question posed on SS — whether Sony’s new live service only games which are releasing day 1 on both PC and PS5 will require PS+ to play online. The PC players will have full online functionality without a subscription, so it would be controversial if PS5 will have to be subscribers.

There’s been a precedent that F2P games don’t require PS+ to play online, but any regular purchased game does require it, so with PC in the mix now, it’ll be interesting.

Of course we don’t know which of Helldivers 2, Concord, Fairgames, Marathon, etc. will be actual purchased games or F2P. But I think they all are coming to PC day 1, if I’m not mistaken.

Anyways, it just furthers the quagmire that Sony finds itself in with PS+. Of course, Microsoft has set the precedent with their games and apparently they require Gold membership to play their paid games on Xbox, but not on PC, so I’ll assume Sony follows suit. Not to mention 3rd party games have been this way too, I guess, so maybe it won’t be a big deal.

I do suspect, based on a lot of comments I’m seeing, if Sony would offer a lesser tier of PS+ that is simply ‘online access only’ that many people would downgrade to that (especially now after the price hikes) and Sony would lose a lot of revenue. So it’s not likely to happen.

@sanderson72 I agree with you that Sony is unlikely to add anything to PS Plus even after the insane price increase. Not trying to start an argument or anything, but if the look of the PS5 and it's UI makes you depressed, then you have a problem. The look of the PS5 and the sound and look of it's UI shouldn't be able to ruin your ability to enjoy games in the best possible way on consoles. I prefer the PS4's UI still with the PS5's still missing critical features, but I'm glad to have the PS5. Enjoy the vastly superior load times and better graphics.

@KilloWertz TBH, I'm not seeing that much of a difference from the Pro with a 6GB/sec SSD to the 5

1) Load times seem slightly quicker but not life changing. Maybe I was just expecting too much? What takes the PS5 about 5 seconds, the Pro performs in less than 10.
2) The PS4s UI flows and works whereas the PS5 seems to be random button mashing to get it to do anything (closing down a game is the most baffling sequence)
3) The PS5 UI is just.....miserable. All black background with a funeral dirge 'music'.
4) Why can't the PS5 download multiple things at once like it's dad?

I'm keeping the PS5 for future, non-old gen titles like BG3 and Dragon's Dogma 2 but the PS4 is still going to be used for Diablo 4 and ESO.

@sanderson72

1) Given the speed you listed, I'm assuming you have a top of the line one in your Pro. Anyways, it depends on the game. Obviously certain PlayStation exclusives like Miles Morales and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart have you playing in game in a matter of a few seconds (after the initial load where you get the PS Studios logo) and that's a big deal, but there are other games that load much faster than their PS4 counterparts like historically long loaders like Horizon Zero Dawn, The Witcher 3, and anything by Rockstar. Of course your upgraded hard drive will be noticeably better than the stock one, but I'd say the load times is one of the better upgrades so far.

2) It is true that certain things were easier to do on the PS4, but the more you do things like shutting down a game or even your PS5 the more you forget that it was easier on the PS4. It's not like it's so convoluted that it doesn't eventually become second nature all over again. Or at least it should become second nature.

3) While I do think the update last year that forced the Activity Cards on us, essentially taking away the background artwork for each game and replacing it with a screenshot from the game was idiotic and should be reverted, I don't really understand how it could be considered miserable. It's background music. Was the PS4's better? Possibly, but it's a bit much to say the least imo to make that big of a deal out of it.

4) That particular feature doesn't matter to me much anymore as I get a lot of games physically, but I'll still give you that one. Not sure why that's missing along with other crucial features. Since it was a brand new UI and releasing during the pandemic, I could understand them maybe missing a feature or two at launch, but it's been almost 3 years now. I'm in the minority that doesn't care about Folders, but why we can't check for updates for all games in our Library and not just the ones on the Home screen is beyond me. We could on the PS4 obviously. It's annoying to have to load the game up if there's an update and it's not on our Home screen.

Not being able to update all games at once is very frustrating on PS5, to the point where I thought that the option should obviously be there somewhere, and I couldn't find it. Also, sometimes not even the games on the home screen update automatically. The only way to update a game not in the home screen is to START IT!! There is no "check for update" option!

I am not a fan of the UI but you get used to it.

Another bizarre choice is that you cannot back up PS5 saves in USB, forcing you to use PS Plus.

Just some random thoughts here, but after some of the recent discussion I was thinking about games that I think are potential to drop onto PS+ soon (either Essential or Extra). So this is not necessarily a wishlist, but are some games that I feel like make sense to be offered on the service. Either they are commercial flops that need to recoup some profit, are old and not selling anymore, are titles that are just popular enough to bring a few eyes to the service, or games that have sequels coming up that could use the service for promote the series.

-Forspoken
-Wild Hearts
-Valkyrie Elysium
-Scars Above
-Praey for the Gods
-Lord of the Rings: Gollum
-Hades
-The Devil in Me
-Monster Hunter Rise
-Doki Doki Literature Club
-Dragon Age Inquisition
-God of War Ragnarok

Can you all think of any others that make sense to come soon to PS+?

@Th3solution I would love for Hades to come to the service. Some good games there, although I am sometimes glad when there are no games that I'm interested in that drop intonthe service! 😂

In addition, I think the below are good bets.

Crisis Core FFVII Réunion
Hoa
Griftlands
Little Nightmares 2
Blacktail
Cult of the Lamb
Afterparty
FIST
Solar Ash
Darkest Dungeon
Ni No Kuni
The last campfire

Some of those may have already been on the service, but have not kept track of those.

@JohnnyShoulder Those are some good ones as well. None of them seem familiar as having been on the service yet, except for maybe Hoa and Darkest Dungeon…? Not sure.

There’s been at least one example that I know of where a game was on PS+ Extra,
left the service, and then came back. That was AC Valhalla. There may have been others. (Edit: I think Miles Morales is another one) And I know of several instances when a game was on Extra and then later became an Essential game and vice versa. Especially the latter. A substantial portion of the Extra catalogue is comprised of games that I’ve already accumulated through what is now called the Essential tier games over the years.

Sony find themselves in an interesting place with the subscription services. As a response to GamePass I think they really went all in as far as they could to make the upper tiers high quality, but now with the stagnation of subscriptions I wonder how they will treat it going forward. Especially after the price hike, many of us are expecting even higher quality output, but they may not feel compelled to try to compete with GP anymore since it’s struggling (or at least that’s my impression).

I didn’t read all the Insomniac leak stuff but according to Colin one of the pieces of info therein was how Sony feels like they lost a lot of money specifically on Horizon Forbidden West by putting it on Extra too soon. It’s partly why I’m curious how they’ll treat GoW Ragnarok. If Microsoft doesn’t have subscription-selling first party games (Starfield apparently failed to move the needle), then Sony probably won’t feel pressure to put their own big games on there. We’ll see.

I'm going to drop down to Essential when my Extra-enhanced subscription ends in early December.
I'm only going with Essential so I can a) play online and b) can back up the PS5's game saves somewhere as miserable Sony won't add the back up to USB for PS5 files, though, weirdly, the PS5 allows for PS4 saves to be? Probably cut 'n' paste code from the PS4 OS.

@Th3solution You might be correct about Valhalla, but I don't think Miles Morales ever came off the service, only the first game. I'd be surprised if Darkest Dungeon had been on there, as it's been on my wishlist for what seems like forever lol.

@Th3solution I see Red Redemption 2 is on Extra next week. I'm pretty sure that was on the service before. 🤔

@JohnnyShoulder Yes, I think you’re right. It was like AC Valhalla and just made a brief appearance early on, if I recall correctly.