PS Plus Premium is a mess – it’s not exactly breaking news. While conceptually sound – a higher level tier for true PlayStation enthusiasts – the execution is awful, and it’s actually detracting from the otherwise excellent PS Plus Extra. While there are no new PS1, PS2, or PSP games being added in October 2022 yet again, we actually have a different issue this month.
Y’see, part of Sony’s pitch for PS Plus Premium is that, curiously, it also includes remasters and remakes of classic games, hence why 18th October will see the addition of Yakuza 3 Remastered, Yakuza 4 Remastered, and Yakuza 5 Remastered. Except, staggeringly, the platform holder has decided to include GTA: Vice City as a PS Plus Extra perk – it makes no sense.
By the platform holder’s very own logic, GTA: Vice City should be a PS Plus Premium game, as it’s a PS2 title that’s been spruced up for PS5 and PS4. It’s absolutely not a remake, because the underlying game code remains unchanged. In fact, aside from the addition of checkpoints and a controversial new art style, this is practically identical to the PS2 game.
Look, we don’t mean to sound too grumbly, but it’s these kind of weird inconsistencies that Sony needs to clean up. PS Plus Premium is the most expensive subscription on PS5 and PS4 – it should be better than this.
[source pushsquare.com]
Comments 65
I don’t think different games are really the way to go for Premium, they really don’t seem to have the content to keep Extra interesting if they put too much into Premium.
Instead, Premium should try to carve out other features. Like a permanent discount on games, better streaming options like being able to use PS Now tech to stream every game you own, not just the ones included in the service and so on.
Its simple really. PS Premium needs to go. They have completely over complicated a relatively easy win.
They should have just had Essential and Extra from the get go to avoid confusion and shield them from some of the criticism when there are a lack of 'retro additions'
If they really wanted premium, it should have included added value such as a crunchy roll sub. I bet they try and include some limited discord features in there too
Premium is a waste.
Gta is another level above most retro games though (edit : popularity wise I mean) , even the old ones could still be considered mainstream appeal, which is why its such a shame the remaster got messed up at the start.
I can see why they'd rather put it in extra though.
The Yakuza thing is making me extremely mad since I'm currently Twitch streaming every Yakuza game since they're on PS Plus, but of course, Extra: 0, 1, and 2, and Premium: 3, 4, and 5. I'm probably gonna end up buying 3, 4, and 5 on Steam or something.
Honestly, I have premium and it's a total waste. Not resubbing to premium again. If I could download and play the PS3 games then it might be worth it because I hate streaming. Even with an extremely fast internet, there is always a noticable input lag.
@PlayStationGamer3919
Same here. Extra is killing it but premium seems like an afterthought, which is weird since the original marketing seemed to emphasize classics, which they've barely provided any of.
I know I’m in the minority, but I like premium. I like the cloud gaming. Plain and simple, if I don’t own the title, why use the hard drive space? Sure, premium could have better perks and more games, but I like the convenience.
They should have gone with two tiers to keep it simple (Plus and Extra) but their greed has no bounds.
Add parasite eve.maximo.beyond good and evil.legend of Dragon.scarface the world is yours.cold fear. daxter.etc etc.word up son
They never should have been duped into having these other tiers to begin with but that's what happens when you have people running the show who have no clear vision and are just following and reacting to what someone else is doing. Now your stuck with trying to feed this service.
I predict that with a year oct2022/oct2023 sony is going to drop the original iteration of PS plus , they will go back to allowing people to play online for free again which will make sense seeing as a lot of there games are coming to pc as well. Now the argument could be made that they have only released single player games on pc which is true for now but they are going to eventually release multiplayer games and some of those aren't going to be free to play.
I feel if they drop the one level of plus having just the 2 levels it won't seem so bad and at the higher price point for the current middle level they could probably stomach allowing the free online again as it will also come with the added bonus of looking like their the good guys allowing "free online"
I try to stay positive about the lack of classic games on premium by telling myself they are delaying these releases to add quality of life improvements like trophy support. But who am I kidding this is a Jim Ryan ran Sony they could careless about adding features to stuff like that. If it wasn't for the extra effort from Sony Bend we wouldn't have any trophy support to these classic games.
sony wont get rid of premium, will be extra that goes, wih its stuff becoming premium at premium price. coz its sony.
I agree with a lot of these comments. There's a few things I wanna mention though.
Just purely looking at the premium list of games by itself honestly isn't a bad list but if you've already played many on there then it's not looking so good currently
The extra price of premium per year is small
3 or 4 months now premium has been going is that really a long enough time for it to shine?
I'm still patiently waiting for it to improve a bit more before murdering it with a few words. Question is though will it ever improve over time. Personally the biggest let down for it so far is the lack of trophy support on many of the PS1 classics which makes it feel nothing like premium
PS Plus Premium is awful and Sony would make everyone's life easier if they got rid of it and added those old console games to Extra which is the real highlight tier.
They can also remove the expectation of them needing to add to that old library every month and just add games when they feel like it (like they are currently doing except people are waiting).
While I agree with the premise of the article, I would actually spin this the opposite direction. It's PS Plus Extra that doesn't make sense. I've been wanting Sony to merge the PS Plus and Now service for years. That's what premium is for exactly the same price. Now Extra is just a downgraded version of PS Now. Takes away random "classic" games whether they could be played natively on PS4 or not. Takes away streaming. Really just overcomplicated matters with that middle tier IMO.
They should ditch it and stick with Extra as the highest tier IMO, or just mash them together to simplify their confusing mess. Retro games should have been a separate cheap subscription with some actual effort put behind it, but that will probably never happen as long as Jim Ryan calls the shots.
The problem with Premium is that it’s much more expensive than Plus and Now used to be combined. It’s insanely expensive.
There is plenty of time left in my one year sub to convince me to stay at the top with premium. For now I am thinking I should have just stayed with PS Plus.
I bought the PS2 versions of the GTA trilogy years ago before they got delisted so 2k/rockstar could sell there shoddy 'remasters'
“ PS Plus Premium is the most expensive subscription on PS5 and PS4 – it should be better than this.”
BINGO. On the nose. 👍🏽💪🏽
@EdwardElric try subscribing to pc game pass they have all the Yakuza games on their
I'd honestly rather Microsoft have the rights to PS2 , PS1 & PSP games because I know they'd actually put the work in like they did with the 360 games
I'm starting to think they wouldn't work on native ps3 emulation because they thought streaming would sell premium, crazy! all people wanted was some decent ps1 ps2 + psp games with trophies and they can't do that. I don't sub at any level because I own 80% of the games on extra, Microsoft are rumored to be dropping sub requirements for online very soon, if true Sony must accept it needs re think PS+ altogether and make MP free again
I figured the rollout of classic titles would be slow but I didn't see it going this slow. A real shame too. I only got the standard plus but perhaps if the classic catalog was a bit more enticing I could be tempted into at least a month or two of premium but oh well.
imo sony should ditch ps plus premium but move the games that are only on that tier (Toy Story 3 for PSP, Resident Evil: Director’s Cut for PS1, etc) to extra/essential, hell, merge essential and extra, screw it, why not? it could help people be less confused… 🤷♂️
Sony should just buy out all the good PS1, PS2 and PSP emulators, because there are ones that have been near perfected and work just fine. Should be simple then to give us that enormous library of games. I mean it's comical that I can play all my old PS games on my Series X and not my PS5 🙈
3 tiers as a baffling move. Should had always been just two tiers, PSN+ and PSN++, done.
Premium costs you £16 British pounds per year. Extra is £83.99 per year and Premium is £99.99 per year. That's a £16 difference for 12 months if going for premium. Not defending premium just saying
@Balie3000 I'm no expert but I think those emulators are open source & Sony can use them as long as they credit the people that made them
@Otherbarry 🤣 Are you seriously suggesting Sony are going to want to give away the over £5billion they make yearly from PS+ to come across as the good guys? That's a prediction I'd have no qualms betting against.
@Would_you_kindly I get what you're saying but, Sony being the big corporation that it is, would never credit someone else for running their legacy games on the PS5. They would make it their own thing.
The only reason why Premium exists is to continually offer PS3 streaming to a limited audience. Streaming capacities at Sony are too small for a huge number of players. The clean strategy would have been: 1. Skip streaming entirely, 2. make a two-tier system with Essential (incl. PS2, PS2 and PSP, „SD tier“) and Premium (incl. PS4 and PS5, „HD tier“), 3. add Vita and PS3 emulation to Premium at a later point. This last step is expensive, so Sony doesn’t go the full mile. This is the real shame!
Removed - unconstructive
@Dr_Luigi you'll not be missed
When I read that headline I thought Sony had said something about it.
I bought most of the PS1 classics I wanted during the PS3 days. As they become available on Premium again they'll just appear in my library once more.
With that in mind I don't really need Premium and will drop to Extra on my next renewal.
As for the state of Premium, I get the sense that Sony are holding back and waiting for something. I have no idea what. Maybe a deal with Square or something.
But as it currently stands and assuming that Sony have absolutely zero plans for Premium, which is probably unlikely, then yes, it should just be merged down in to the Extra tier.
I don’t usually agree with the overly critical feeling of most people about plus, because I consider Essential and Extra insanely good value, but I can’t disagree here. I mean, yes, OK, it’s illogical this month, but giving VC to more people is only a good thing, the problem is giving PS4 SKUs, locked behind Premium, at all. Retro should, at most, be PS3 and earlier, putting them in premium probably just costs Sony less due to fewer subscribers, plus is a cynical attempt to pad out the service due to what is clearly a halfhearted effort to get older games on board. Premium is just really poor, I think we can all agree.
Well the PS2 emulator is horrible so that explains why there's no more new games. the compatibility and performance of other games is pretty poor as well. ape escape 2 is embarrassing on there sony should actually be ashamed to have that still for sale.
While Microsoft have Game Pass, Sony have Game Farce.
The idea that you need to be paying for premium to play a timed demo too is absurd.
Remember when demos were free and it was apparently illegal to sell them? Now you have to pay monthly and you only get three hours to play it.
@Balie3000 Haha yeah exactly. I find it hilarious I can use a Microsoft console to locally play certain PS2/GameCube games via Dev Mode (some GC ones upscale nicely to 4K60 as you might know) yet I can't play them on the PS5 or Switch. Something is definitely messed up at Nintendo and Sony for that to be the case...
I think the criticism on Premium is a bit harsh. Yes, it could definitely improve. But still, it holds 87 games that aren’t on Extra.
I think that’s not too bad, considering it only launched a few months ago and costs € 1,67 more than Extra.
I have a full annual PS+ subscription, and all in all I’m very happy with it. If they left it exactly as is but called the expensive monthly chunk of AAA games ‘Premium’ instead of ‘Extra’, and the cheaper cherry-on-top add on of special interest legacy games ‘Extra’ instead of ‘Premium’, that would seem to fix most people’s complaints. It’s a great service, but why did they name it backwards?
@Balie3000
That, right there!
Sony might just set it's focus on premium offering streaming capabilities. For that they must severely improve the streaming quality, especially under non optimal conditions as well as making it accessible on every device. Don't know why the PlayStation app doesn't allow it yet!
It's a confusing service, and that is concerning for Sony given that the people that write and read these articles are arguably part of the "hardcore" gaming market. If we are struggling to get our heads around it, good luck to the "casual" gamers or families trying to navigate what to buy for their children, nephews/neices etc.
I'd argue their old system was better, PS+ & PS Now. Two distinct services, with very different offerings. You could have both, or just one (people not interested in PS+ could have PS Now for £40-50/yr, and still play games on that service online). But now? You have 3 tiers, the starting 'essential' one like the old PS+, then 'Extra' & 'Premium'.
Having 3 tiers is confusing enough, but having some PS4 titles appear only in 'Premium' is confusing. They touted 'Extra' as being PS4 & PS5 games, but that isn't true if "remastered" PS4 games only appear in the top tier (sometimes in case of GTA).
Then the 'Premium' service, which is so close in price to 'Extra' that it feels like an expiriment over how much consumer are willing to spend. If that's the case, combine them at £85 and be done with it. I mean the fact we are still seeing PAL/NTSC issues at this stage is ridiculous.
It would have been a lot easier, and a better value proposition, if they'd simply offered a PS+ & Now bundle at a reduced price, say £75/yr and then left them separate, distinct services. Because let's be honest, PS+ Extra/Premium are essentially just confusing rebadges of the old PS Now.
@Otherbarry online for free never coming back u can blame the hack for that.
@Shepherd_Tallon I'd guess the state of Premium is to do with the whole mess regarding PAL versions and the service focuses on PS3 streaming and PS4 remastered games until they manage to get PAL + NTSC available for all regions working properly.
A similar thing happened for NSO Expansion Pack, very buggy October 2021 launch and then there was no game in November 2021. Following that, fixes for existing games in the service started to come alongside the 1 monthly new game addition.
@Grumblevolcano That's the other thing really I guess - It's still very early days. It probably won't be where Sony want it to be for a few more months.
@Rob_230 @get2Sammyb Whilst I don't personally find the Crunchyroll sub that attractive ,(my fave anime stuff is select 70's/80's & 90's), I do agree there needs to be an overhaul.
The entire PS Premium tier is a deceptively marketed gimmick based around a rebadged PS Now. I only speculate on this as I ironically live in a PS Deluxe Territory but I'm not a fan of streaming only as being the solution to a lack of effort on porting or emulation.
Judging from the lack of third party & first party PSP,PS1,PS2 Classics being added for PS Deluxe suggests they only intended the "library of classic games",were mostly pre-existing titles....eg: to date the only PS2 additions was Jak & Daxter from the discontinued PS2 Classics program on PS4!🙄
There's been no effort to improve the emulator used back then which was functional more than pretty for stuff like GTA Vice City/SA, The Warriors,Canis Canem Edit,Metal Slug Anthology etc. (Yes i bought a few of them!)
There's been no announcements about a PS Classics team interacting via the blog or twitter saying "what games would you like to see?" Or touting old genuine classics like Alundra, Adventures of Lomax,Twisted Metal,Rayman, Legacy of Kain,Colony Wars or those classic ps1 rpg's & 2d shmup's.
Instead of resourcing a Sly Cooper trilogy HD port or ps2 classics we got a blog announcement of merch....& Mr Hulst announcing the purchase of a mobile games studio to work on classic IP's & yet insist they were committed to PS Gamers!
Much like the ps1 mini,(& its so-so line-up of games),& the defunct ps2 classics range,it's easy for Jim Ryan to claim its highly requested but little used yet Sony's support of such classic games libraries/emulation has been poor/ "cheap" to say the least. If you put in a lacklustre effort how can you expect people to support/buy the product?🤔
As a Territory where PS Deluxe is $155 almost double PS Essential's $80,they should be putting the $$ into a dedicated Classics library effort instead of wait until you get PS Now/Premium!
Shambles of a tier, Sony have been taking a lot of L's. I hear PS Stars is lacking as well.
I can't belive they (assumingly) reviewed the services Nintendo offer + Xbox's Rewards and thinking this iteration of PS Stars was still a good idea.
its 20quid a year more for 80+ games, and you could just subscribe to extra and ignore premium
So New Sony had Plus (online play and a few free to rent games) and Now (historic PS titles, etc.) and they managed to cock it up so much that now we have Essential (same as before), Extra (adds PS4/5 games) AND Premium (see Now).
Premium just looks like a total waste of time when the main benefit is to play old PS classics but the selection is almost the same as the (fairly awful) titles originally on Now? Decades of PS titles are simply missing in action.
2 tiers of Plus would've been just fine - Essential and Extra - but phoney Sony just want yet more cash grabs for churning out the same stuff over and over again. Pathetic.
Just a thought but I wonder if the poor attempt with the Premium could be with people stacking PS Now before the new tiers launched. Maybe they need those people to pay the full price and not the cheaper option. So until some or most of those expire, we may not see much of an improvement.
There is also the 50% off in the UK last year they could be waiting to expire too. Should be ending either this month or November.
Premium is probably not popular/profitable enough to warrant much extra content, but at the same time they can't simply get rid of something customers have bought years of subscription for.
So it ends up hanging in the air, like a stale fart at a cocktail party.
It makes perfect sense actually. Premium includes game streaming as well as games not on Extra. What are those games? Whatever they announce is on Premium. Kinda like how what's on Extra is whatever they announce for Extra.
Three tiers of PS Plus are pointless. Just make them two tiers. PS Plus Essential and PS Plus Premium that comes with all the benefits of the current Extra and Premium. In other words, just combine Extra and Premium into a single sub. The more tiers you make, the harder it becomes to differentiate them.
As a Australian we can't even stream ps3 games. And almost anything on the list of current ps4/5 gemas I allready own or just dont care about. The sales pitch for us was literally well give you ps1, 2 and psp games. I singed up instantly thinking about the old ratchet and clanks, socom, black, desert storm Kingdom hearts ect ect ect. So far it's been beyond a let down and as it stands I won't be renewing my subscription
@zekepliskin don't even need to be in dev mode anymore I've got duckstation pcsx2 & ppsspp all installed on my Xbox one in retail mode lol
@-Sigma- what are you talking about? This service is the evolution of PS Now, which was available long before xbox launched game pass.
It's official...SONY suffers from the Stadia syndrome
The original big sell on me with premium was that it was supposed to have demos for every game on the store…obviously this was far fetched and hasn’t even come close to happening.
They need to add all these remasters they’re making to the service day 1.
And make a bigger marketing push for their cloud service
@Rob_230 Them adding a CrunchyRoll sub would make my day and save me some money.
It’s very confusing now. I’m not up to date with what is offered with each of the tiers anymore. It’s free games for the base tier, but also extra ones for the top tier? Premium, Extra, Plus, which is the top tier? It was simple before. At a glance, it is indeed just a mess now.
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