If you want to extend your PS Plus membership to any one of the service's three tiers (Essential, Extra, Premium), then today is your last chance to do so before Sony's controversial price increase comes into effect. 12-month subscriptions are increasing by as much as £20 / $40 tomorrow, making today the last opportunity to stack your subscription to cover the years ahead.
It has never been clear whether there's a hard limit on how many years you can extend your PS Plus membership by, but with some users extending theirs to 2028 — and even beyond that — you are able to lock yourself in to the current, lower price point for a significant amount of time. Doing so could save you a lot of money in the long run if you're willing to invest now and believe the top tier PS Plus Premium will get better. If not, PS Plus Extra continues to represent fantastic value for money.
As revealed in last week's Poll, 35 per cent of you voted to say you'll be letting your subscription lapse after the price hike, while another 22 per cent said they'll be downgrading to a lower tier. Are you sticking with your decision or will you get another year out of the current price point? Let us know in the comments below.
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Got 1 year of PS Plus Premium left and once that runs out, will downgrade to PS Plus Extra on a sale.
Maybe not the best advice as a good chance they could be discounted to lower prices in the black friday sales
Reminder: Last chance to cancel your subscription if you mostly play offline
I’ve cancelled my premium subscription which runs out in March. I will move to essential after that but may upgrade to Extra next time there’s a sale.
IDK what to say here, I don't like to sound like I'm defending sony, but I live in a country with a high inflation rate. I'm pretty used to prices going up all the time.
6 yeara ago I used to pay 500R (our currency) for 12 month ps+. But nowadays it costs 3400R! More than 6 times more.
How much were you paying 10 years ago ? 60$ ? And up until now you were still paying 60$. Does 60$ has the same value it had 10 years ago ? No you were paying 80$ at least 10 years ago if you adjust inflation.
So, I guess it's not a price increace, it's a price asjustment.
Then again I'm not defending sony, Just from my and my people POV, it's totally normal.
My premium expires in April next year, wont be renewing it, at the moment not really gaming as much so going to wait and see if ill get the essential or not, dont really game online, and actually havent been playing any of the games available on service, so bit pointless for me at moment. Think im just starting to fall off gaming at moment, hopefully get tge spark back. Have been playing starfield and enjoying it so far which is something.
Sticking with cancel it. Might buy a year if there is a good sale on it.
Will also stop buying day one games and wait for sale.
I just got one more year of premium. I'll downgrade to extra, if the service won't improve in that time period.
I'll wait for Black Friday deal for my premium sub. If it won't be a good deal I'll wait for April when the current one expires and downgrade to Extra
Boris Johnson: buy a new Kettle now, and in ten years time you'll have covered the cost of buying the new kettle with the money you save
Just wait for the sale where they knock off 25% or more every year, or black Friday instead, because by then you might not even want the sub anyway, and if you've already paid for years worth you are stuck with it, but if you decide you do want it, it's literally no more than now, or potentially less 😅 also if people do drop off, they will be trying to entice more people to stay subscribed with even more sales.
Just checked but still got Premium stacked to 2026 from the PS+ & Now conversion. Plus it's only a £20 price hike in the UK will be better priced on Black Friday.
Mine expires at the end of November
I'm going to sit tight and take my chances on whatever the Black Friday sales are
My premium subscription runs out in December, so I'm gonna get playing the ps classics I never finished such as legend of dragoon. Then I'll downgrade to extra after that. Unless they seriously up the value of premium, such as adding way more ps2 games like the rumours say
I gave up bothering to make sense of what all the different tiers offer in terms of incentives. Perhaps it would be better if the tiers were adjusted? Maybe there could be a very nominal fee for only-online play & cloud saves (I wish the latter was free like on Xbox), then a basic tier with free games and a premium service with back catalogue streaming on top.
Regarding waiting for sales, I rarely, if ever, buy a game day one. I can answer a confident “No” to all the “Did you buy…” polls. With such a back catalogue, I’m just not that desperate to play anything day one. Much better to save money and pick the game up in a sale after a few months.
Im still on premium and paid up till december 2024. Plenty of time evaluate what I want for the future, and to enjoy what it gives me now...
I've had a good think about whether I want to just do a year of essential just to tick off my remaining ps plus backlog but tbh, it's £40 or so that I don't really have right now and I don't know how much time I'll have for it so I think I'm Gona leave it
I've got premium until 2025. Will probably drop down to extra then.
@Vacuumator online is not free on xbox, you need Game Pass Core to play online. Indeed, it was Microsoft who started charging people to play online, Sony followed suit quite a bit later.
Cloud saves were a necessity for having a store that includes PC as well as console, so their hands were tied, they needed cloud save to be for everybody to ensure their cross platformn promises worked.
I think both corps should offer online for free, including cloud saves, its utterly rediculous. At least with Microsofts family policy my wife inherits all the same benefits as myself and so can act as an ultimate subscriber. Sonys rediculous policies mean the only way for us to manage with 2 ps5's,is for my wife to have her own psn membership - otherwise we constantly have to set which ps5 is my home console so she can access the game, and she has no cloud saves to move between the machines. She has her own extra subscription just so we dont have to juggle that rediculous system!
It is what it is, and we are happy enough, but it could be much better 😀
I did this, this morning. Logically, it's a bit silly for me though. I'm on Essential tier and a long-standing Plus subber covering PS3 - PS5 + Vita machines, all of which I still use. So effectively for me, with the price increase, I'm paying £5 per month for access to a catalogue of over 250 games I've still not played, never mind those I have completed over the years and not including the games yet to be added to the service. This is in comparison to the £4.17 per month I have been paying.
So even with no new features or benefits, it's worth it for me, so I've locked in another 12 months. So see if I moan in November 2024 lol.
Never has PS Plus, never will.
No thank you, I’ll let it run out next summer. Such a steep price increase is against my principles. I’ll turn the Series X into my main console instead of the PS5 since Game Pass now definitely offers a much better deal, including all games that are coming out in the next year or so.
I’m not playing online anyway, so I won’t miss it.
I've been very happy with Extra and decided to extend.
With the option to game on both Series X and PC hardware as well as Playstation, this price hike 'hurts' just to play 'online' on Playstation. I know you have to pay on 'Xbox' too, albeit a lower cost per month, and with Game Pass Ultimate, that is essentially 'free' and gives me access to games on MANY platforms, inc Day 1 releases, I am struggling to 'justify' the 'extra' on PS - especially as I can play multi-platform 'online' games elsewhere and Sony's 'exclusives' that really appeal to me are 'Single' player games - Spider-Man, Wolverine, God of War etc. Therefore I think I will be letting my PS+ Essential tier 'run out' and unlikely (at this point) to renew.
I think Sony is playing the long game here.
It would have been better if Sony had just been honest about the fact that the subscription business model isn't sustainable. But what's happening with the creatives' strikes in Hollywood will eventually come for games if the platform holders continue down this road. Either the developers and publishers that make games will have to start cutting costs to make the maths work for them (leading to worse games for us), or prices for consumers have to rise.
By raising prices for consumers, Sony could offer more to publishers and developers whose games go on Extra and/or Premium in a sustainable way. That could lead to higher-quality 3rd party games eschewing GamePass but being available on PS+ Extra.
These price rises could be a sign of PlayStation's continuing strategy of distinguishing itself through the quality of its offerings.
@Titntin
I was referring to the cloud saves being free.
In many ways, Xbox offers a much better service than Sony. Free cloud saves, better approach to backwards compatibility, retention of free games after subscriptions have lapsed.
Will just let my premium run out then wait for a sale and get extra
Cd keys ppl! I hold hopes it gets better, esp. with the portal coming. I mean, it has to get better right?
@StrickenBiged I agree with you there, but Sony did actually talk about the subscription model not being sustainable, especially when it came to day one releases.
@lolwhatno Not lying there. Did you see their share prices increase after the price hike?
Nope, I ain't stacking 💩
Once mines is up next summer it's up.
Sony will be raking it in today as everyone who hasn't already will stacking up.
Na I'm just not gonna bother they want to raise prices fair enough keep it I play offline anyway.
@deathaxe Why? It's time for a little poem:
The discounts are big, that is what you say,
And you're correct but maybe you should change your way:
A second hand physical copy is a bit more to pay,
But you own it in the end and let's be honest: how many games do you actually play?
The games they give us are mediocre at best,
Besides, games that I play should be mine and not Sony's request.
Also, I don't enjoy online gaming: for me offline is the best,
and that is why PS Plus should be laid to rest.
@DrSimtheorist
Just been to CDkeys. All PS+ voucher codes show 'out of stock' on them. ShopTo don't have them listed anymore either. Almost like they've disappeared from online stores overnight. Eerie that 'innit? Just as they announce a price hike?
@StrickenBiged I read an article yesterday that the WGA were trying to get gaming developers to strike. And given the notorious "crunch" that some of them operate under, I can see them striking.
The WGA has a good reason to try and get gamers to strike of course: No one cares about TV and Hollywood anymore and the profits of something like GTA5 prove it. Day two hundred and something and I'm not missing it, dunno about anyone else. The world has moved on from 2008.
Expires in March, after that I'm out. This will be my last home console as well. I'm going to graduate to the pc master race after this generation.
This'll get lost all the way down here but shop.to has £84 virtual cards for £70.41.
https://www.shopto.net/en/dls551143-playstation-wallet-top-up-84-ps5-ps4psn-p1173384/
@Vacuumator understood mate.
Though the games with gold free games you could keep were not only almost universally awful, but have also finished, so there are no such titles you keep anymore, both services are complete parity on that issue.
Xboxs quest for backward compatability was laudable while they were still doing it (that program was stopped some time ago), but with no big first party titles in the machines early launch period, they need the program to provide compellng titles. Still miles better than Sonys laughable attempts. Fortunately I buy new machines to play new games, or I would be unhappy with Sonys poor track record. 😁
nope, not interested, don't game much on my PS5 these days plus essential bills comes first anyways, still got till mid next year before it expires, worry about it then
I'm not sure if this was mentioned, but iirc when the 3 tiers were first introduced you couldn't downgrade plans.
I remember because I got Premium automatically from the initial PS Plus + Now conversion, but only really wanted Extra, and I couldn't do it.
Well I tried now, and it is possible to downgrade! I still have Premium until April, but it will only renew Extra then.
Only open question is, if I buy more Extra on sale before then, will it stack? 🤔
I'm good until Dec 2024 but Black Friday + Shop To wallet top-up = only way I'm going to renew going forwards.
Getting really sick of this current version of PlayStation....
@GADG3Tx87 eerie? Or coincidence? Used to never have a problem a couple of years ago, but yes, ever since price hikes a couple years ago it's almost impossible to find discounted vouchers these days.
Just got a notification yesterday evening, and they're all sold out? For all these users claiming their going to downgrade or cancel... This is reminding me of pandemic and toilet paper.
I cancelled mine immediately as I was disgusted with the thought of paying £59.99/$79.99 just to have access to Internet I already pay for, since I like going for Platinums I will now try my best to avoid games with online trophies 🤷
@GADG3Tx87 are we looking at the same page? Cuz I just checked out cdkeys and everything is in stock currently (at least top up cards for UK accounts).
Nah I'm good, already safe until early 2025, after that no psplus for me.
@Vacuumator I have no problem if sony release psplus basic for $20 like nintendo subs, for just cloud saves, psn discount, and maybe asynchronous multiplayer for single player games, not true multiplayer games (for elden ring, but not call of duty) 😕
I was on Premium & had planned to lapse until Black Friday for a few months, even before the price hikes. The only value I really got out of Premium over Extra was a Gravity Rush Remastered playthrough.
With the price hikes, I'm just going to lapse entirely and shift my multiplat/multiplayer gaming to PC. If Sony announces stuff that gets me excited about the next couple of years on PS5 I'll reconsider.
If Extra adds a bunch of PSVR2 games, that could get me back on the service.
@Czar_Khastik Dumbest thing i ever heard. So You play single player YET you bought PS+?
I'm sticking with the current plan I've which is no subscription.
I let my subscription lapse when they introduced tiers and ever since every now and then Sony has given more reason to never look back at it again
@naruball
I'm on the UK site. Every PS+ subscription (not top up) says 'notify me'. None are available to buy.
@Tr3mm0r Didn't know you worked at the "Ministry of Dumb and Smart comments". You do know that people get free games each month besides being able to play online? You also know that people get discounts on PSN purchases? If not, please feel free to ask around your Ministry.
Just a note, I played some online coop games with my friends (Dying Light, Remnant: From the ashes, ...) and I left my subscription open since I've gotten 3 games each month for free. But in the meantime I realized I don't play these games and I spend 50€ a year for basically nothing.
I am not. "Ministry of Dumb and Smart comments". Im not Your collegue
I'd rather buy an Xbox than pay for the ps plus. This is how much I hate all of Sony's never justified price increases
I’m good until late December. The past 4 or 5 years I’ve purchased PS+ I’ve never paid more than $40, on sale either at NewEgg, a Black Friday sale, or Sonys own PSN store sale. There’s really no reason to ever pay full price, no matter what that price is.🤷🏻♂️
That said, currently planning on letting it lapse, just like I just let my Family plan lapse on Switch, we weren’t really using it. May need to sign back up for NO when Mario Wonder releases and all my kid’s friends get it but we’ll see. I don’t see any reason to sign back up for PS+, and this months Ess offerings weren’t doing anyone any favors.🤑
This is exactly what Sony want you to do - stack up on subs and make them a load of money in the process. I’d rather let mine lapse.
my psplus subscription literally expired today but I will be busy this month so I dont know if I should sub or wait a month or maybe black friday
I appreciate the Majora's Mask reference.
@bindiana No it will not, Black Friday discounts are around 25-30% at max, so with the discount it will end up at basically the same price it is today which is ridiculous.
@IOI Just going by UK prices extra is £84 at the moment will go up to £100 even 20% off brings it down to £80 which is cheaper then it currently is (not by much granted) but if the discount is 25 or 30% the saving is more. So from UK point of view makes sense to wait a couple months instead of rushing to top up today. I haven't calculated the US prices those could be different.
If only I had several hundred pound to spend on a gaming subscription up front rather than keep the money I do have the constant rising food prices and constantly high energy prices.
@GADG3Tx87 I'm too and they're all available. I don't get it.
@Powerplay94 …AND cheaper!
@IOI Yeah, I stacked an extra 12 months yesterday because I calculated that even with a 25% off “sale”, my Essential subscription would STILL cost about ten bucks more than it does now (I’m in Canada).
When I automatically had Premium from OG PS+ and Now, I tried to Black Friday it with Extra and it wouldn't work, so from then on once it had lapsed (the following month) I didn't renew.
Twice since then they've emailed me with a discounted price to rejoin and I took up one of the offers for 3 months I think it was.
But from now I think I'll just do monthly Extra as and when since those have not gone up.
Just added 1 more year of premiun since I barely own any games and almost exclusively play from the game collection on PS+.
I rarely play online. I bought PS+ like 4 years ago and I stayed for the free games, but in hindsight I haven't used that much either. I think I'll just let it lapse this year.
@bindiana Highly unlikely they'll be cheaper than the previous rates even on Sale
I thought I am up until April 24, but turns out I am till 25. So I just bought one premium year for 117 euros (99sterling). I am set now for foreseeable future.
@bindiana And then Sony comes in and discounts it for 10% lmao.
I renewed extra for next 12 months during last Days of Play, 25% discount was good deal imo...I'm fine then till June 2024 but not sure now if I ever renew again, I'll see next year May/June if I still could see value in there or not anymore
Not possible here in Turkey because Sony blocked to purchase of PS Plus until price hike. What a consumer friendly company 🤡
Im not going to stack I'll stay with the lowest tier and not play the games the day i can get it without the games is the day im happy. I don't have the time for these games and what I want is what I buy.
@iDreamwalker 60 doesn't have the same value as 20 year ago you are correct however, with scale the profit margin increases overall with more subscribers.
Think why supermarkets can outprice corner shops or car companies can drop or keep prices low when they are buying and selling in bulk.
The problem with tech companies is they want the same profit margin per user if they have 1m subscribers or 100m.
They've spent the last decade digitising their marketplace so they can start gouging in to your wallet.
They want all the money. All the time and it's only going to get worse.
@Zenszulu with the crisis we have now they are taking the mic smh, this is why i'm focusing on the essentials that i need
@Nightcrawler71 i'm not giving them a single penny, i don't and have never paid for nintendo subscription and i feel that with plus extra, there is less reasons to use the plus service when these days i'm too busy for tv gaming, i play my switch more than anything now
Actually, tomorrow is the last chance you have. September 6th is when the new prices goes into effect.
My sub renews on September 22nd, I added a year at 33% off. Will wait to see what happens with this in the future.
You mean last chance to not waste money on ps+ services. I will take it! 😁
@Titntin Cloud saves on Xbox are free. But i agree it’s time for both to get rid of the online play paywall. Also Sony need’s to find some games to bring to the services with the price increase. As it sits today the service tiers are mediocre to most gamers. But it’s a smart move for Sony to do this now with online focused games in development. On PS4 Sony first party was mainly action adventure single player. So not sure that was the time to go from $60 to $80. Overall i have both services. But unless Last of Us multiplayer comes out soon. Not sure i need PS+, barely turned on my PS5 since June when diablo 4 came out. I want to play FF16 but don’t need online for that. Enjoy the service, glad you are stacked until late next year. 😊
I extended my subscription because I figured the full price now will be better than the sale price on Black Friday when the cost is $40 higher without a sale.
P.S. I had to buy another year of Premium because I cannot downgrade to Extra until my subscription expires, unfortunately. I would have bought a year of Extra instead.
No thanks. I'll let it lapse in December.
The worst part is paying $5 extra (in tax) per year of Essential...
That's BS, there's no tax on subscriptions..Sony just pockets it.
Dropped all our accounts to Essential 😕
Changed my subscription from premium to essential last night. F u Sony
I stacked an extra year of essential to take me through to late 2025. Whilst i dont play online often, i have years of PS3, 4, 5, and Vita games through the IGC i want access to, and i value cloud saving. I will say this has been the most thought ive given to dropping my sub completely but ive not quite been driven to it yet.
Tbh, buying a 50 pound psn voucher on ShopTo for 42 pounds did help the decision
@EpicMouse really? I've managed to extend fine.
Just an FYI: On sale, PS+ is usually 25% off at most. If you subscribe to premium, you are effectively getting it for the same price now as you would be on Black Friday if it is 25% off. Math!
@iDreamwalker pretty sure it was $49.99 10 years ago. And found substantially cheaper during sales.
My current sub expires today and I turned off auto-renew a while back. I'd upgraded to Premium because of the promo discount they were doing for a while and had intended on dropping my sub down to basic, but after this egregious price hike I'm just cancelling altogether. I just don't use my PS5 anywhere near enough to justify the extra cost.
You're not quite reading it correctly, perhaps. Your current expiration will not change when the price changes - they aren't calculating it like you have a balance they're applying at current rates. What you've already spent got you the expiration date you have, and that's locked in.
HOWEVER, and this is where I think you might not have it quite right, the next time you add on you pay whatever the current price is. It doesn't matter if you do that at your expiration date or months/years before, the cost at the time you give them money is the cost that's used. Plus, if you switch tiers at any time before your expiration, the balance can be recalculated then in a way that may not be in your favor and can change your expiration date.
Future sales may make an annual subscription the same as it is today - or even lower, or higher, it depends on the sale. Based on past results, I'm not too worried about it - they have solid sales at least once a year.
@HonestHick Cheers dude. I kinda envy you the time with diablo - I havent allowed myself to buy it cause of actibliz stuff (personal choice), but me and the misses spent lots of fun hours in Diablo 3.
I guess the plus side is I've been able play some cracking other games, as this year is ramping up!
I've just completed Sea of Stars in time to play starfield on gp tommorrow, and that illustrates beatifully how good these services can be when their are some sweet titles landing and you have time to play them!
@Titntin Yeah the services can really get hot in a week or so when big titles drop. GP alone will have Sea of Star, SF and next month Forza. So that by itself is a big haul. I haven’t played much of anything other than Diablo 4 as you heard from my playtime on it. I think i need to check it again, my guess would be 300 hours or more now. Season 2 for it drops a few days before my birthday so i will take time off and play it a lot during that week. Excited to see what Sony does with their services in 2024. These increases have to bring us something new or exciting.
No panic buying for me. By the time my Premium sub runs out next year Switch 2 may be out, then I'd probably spend a year catching up on the Switch exclusives I missed out on. If not, I'll get Extra when it's on sale. Work on my backlog if there's a gap in between.
Have they done a u turn and not bothering with the price rise?
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