Free PS Plus Extension for All Members Affected by PSN Outage

lol, how about making it free. this effects no one that plays F2P multiplayer games like probably 80% of the PS5s userbase. charging to use your own internet is outdated and scummy.

yes, they did compensation. But question is, some people may miss the ps+ discount sale. Lucky me, I subscribe on 5thJune, still on sale when 10th

Sony: "Don't worry about the uncertainty of a digital-only future.. here's 5 days of our online service... sshhh"

Fair enough 5 days is more then enough.

Is there any way to opt out?

I've timed my renewals to perfection for the last few years so that it renews when they have a 35% - 40% off sale

With these extra 5 days it'll probably take me over the sale period and I'll potentially have to renew at full price next January

@Member_the_game see if you can attend june or Nov sale?

@Member_the_game Even if there is a sale with 5 days left on your subscription you can still buy the sale price. It will just add it on so you would have 1 year and 5 days left at that time. You can buy as many subscriptions as you want at anytime. It just pushes the renewal out.

Not much, but I'll take it.

@nomither6 those players haven't lost out financially and don't need compensation.

Online services cost money to maintain, and Sony don't sell your personal data to make that money.

Yeah 5 days compensation are fair.

@nomither6 "charging to use your own internet is outdated and scummy"

Well you should thanks MS who popularized online play behind paid subscription.

@get2sammyb @Yaycandy

You would think that, but when the sale was on in January it would only let me upgrade for what remained of my contract... (at the time I had about 10 days left)

I had to wait till it expired on 31st January only then would it let me renew for another year with 35% off.

I was fortunate that the sale ran till 5th February

I'll take it but I think I'd rather they just give me my polys for missing a day in zzz and extend the mh wilds beta by a day lol

So nothing for me then but I was completely unaffected anyway as all my games worked

A proper explanation of the cause is needed. I want to know if my data is safe.

"an operational outage" can mean anything.

@get2sammyb The issue is that Sony only does sales if you upgrade your plan. So if you don't time it well and effectively stop subscribing for an interval of time, you won't be able to take advantage of sales. The issue seems pretty clear.

@PuppetMaster I wouldn't really say Microsoft popularizing it excuses Sony and Nintendo from practicing it.

I kinda got it when the sub presumably paid for server maintenance and labor, while not offering the consumer anything other than online play. But, at this point, I think GamePass Ultimate, Playstation Plus Ess/Ex/Pre, and NSO/Nintendo Music all offer more than enough to sustain subscribers without paywalling online play itself. So — and I realize you didn't really dispute this — I absolutely agree with @nomither6 that the practice is outdated.

"Not enough, Give me Astrobot"

Is what I expect some to demand.

@RoomWithaMoose The practice is not outdated but it's completely bad and unnecessary from the very beginning.

And again, MS was the one who popularized it for console gaming. Sony and Nintendo followed because they see it not just as a trend but the $$$$$ that MS earned from locking online play behind paid subscription.

@PuppetMaster I think because you see 3 large corps that have plenty of money that they should fund the costs of servers, maintenance, upgrades etc themselves. Do you realise the cost it takes to actually have something set up to let the world play online??

They don't just have servers in the US they have them everywhere which means paying people to fix them at the rate that country pays etc. New servers aren't cheap and you need a lot of them not just a few, just because Steam doesn't and have never charged doesn't mean everything can be free.

Sony did it for free on PS3 but that was incentive to get people to buy the console and it took a few years to get somewhere. Then they realised to make it compete with Xbox Live they needed to charge hell even Nintendo had too for Switch in the end.

Playing online costs and for 365 years a one off fee plus discounts to games free monthly games I don't think your getting robbed at all. Yeah sure the games lately have been lackluster but again I've had some great discounts on some games and DLC I don't think it's bad as you think it is

@kevinm360 sony gets their money from initial console and accessory sales, cuts from any physical/digital game purchases & anything else that can be bought digitally on PSN, in-game MTXs & their own first party. You shouldn’t have to pay sony to connect your paid for internet to a game developers servers. sony has nothing to do with that

well, i guess you can argue that they actually do have something to do with it , since psn was down and players couldn’t connect to third party servers

i still think online should be free and that charging is unnecessary and wrong

To be fair I could still play offline games eg I was playing Ghost of Tsushima Ps5 edition which I got through ps plus extra.
So considering I didn't "own" this digital title i was surprised to be able to still play it

HOWEVER things like needing server connection for disc drive installation is a big problem for future preservation of hardware

@nomither6 while I wouldn't go as far to say as charging is unnecessary or wrong (we live in capitalism), I'd definitely question the value for money of the services.

I think many people have also questioned the value for money and that's why they offer so many "bonuses" along with the online access. While the bonuses make people feel better about the money they're spending, I don't think they'd sell subscriptions alone if the online service itself was free and Plus was just for everything else.

@nomither6

I don't really play online much myself so the reason I pay for PS Plus (Premium) is purely for the games collections.

I do however agree with you that we shouldn't have to pay to play online.

Or at the very very least there should be some sort of PS Plus alternative option where you can pay a small amount for your online play subscription but you don't get the benefits of the free monthly games or extra Bells and whistles.

As I previously said, it's not something I would be interested in as I enjoy having the "Free" games collections but there definitely should be a cheaper "online play only" option for those that want it.

There appears to be a few people here with short memories who don't remember how poor PSN often was back when it was free.

@kevinm360 that’s how it used to be during the ps3 era. plus was separate & not too many people cared about it so they forced it on people that play online. also, capitalism is wrong, no? as a business owner , what’s not to love about it, but as a consumer? it’s BS

@MrHabushi so not paying Sony was the reason for their own incompetence at creating an online infrastructure? it’s not like psn launched after sony sold the highest selling console of all time(ps2) or anything either

When there will be a discount?

@MrHabushi indeed PSN has vastly improved since the free online days of the PS3 where it felt like the network went down every other week.

@breakneck

I'm assuming your comment about "Relying" on a discount is aimed at me.

Let me assure you that in no way do I rely on a discount.... I have enough disposable income to pay for a years subscription at full price should I need too.

I just found it rather annoying that's all..... I'm sure if you gave the majority of sane people the option of paying the normal price of £120 for a years Premium subscription or paying £77 with a 35% discount they would almost certainly choose the discounted price.

Very much a 1st world problem of course but doesn't make it any less annoying if it effects you personally

Sorry but I found your comment to be unnecessarily patronising and insulting

@FreasurePlanten
This must only be in certain regions. I’ve timed the same just in case it ever changes, but it’s always let me (UK) just extend whenever any sale is on. I usually renew during the Black Friday sales but don’t have to wait for mine to end (yet).

The main reason i was inconvenienced is that the wife and I each have a PS5, and have set it so we can play each other’s games. I couldn’t play the PS Plus games I’d been playing nor any I bought myself. I could have just played on the PS5 in the living room, but I wouldn’t have been able to download my saves from the cloud due to the outage. Nor could I change the settings because of the outage.

I guess this is a niche case, and Sony shouldn’t be blamed for my fiddling their system.

5 days? Barely registers as anything to be honest, but not being able to game for a day is hardly horrendous torture anyway.

I don’t have PS+, do I get 5 days free? 🤣

I have a feeling like Griswald does in National Lampoons when his boss gives him a one year enrollment in the 'Jelly Of The Month' instead of his Christmas bonus.

@thefourfoldroot1 I too have a wife who games as much as me and we both have ps5s (we have both in our lounge with their own TVs). It's so frustrating that my misses has to sub to psn in addition to my premium sub, just so she has online saves and can play on either machine.
Microsoft do it so much better. I sub to Game Pass Ultimate and as my wife is listed as family, she has all the same benefits on her account, no faff, no second sub.
I prefer gaming on this platform, but Microsoft handles it's accounts and families miles better. It feels like Sony is grifting us....

As for the compensation, it's calculated to be cr@p.. anyone who doesn't have PSN already likely works all week like most of us and 5 days means it will end before next weekend, when they might best have used it. You could argue they can use it today, but I suspect most won't realise they have it till the weekend is gone. It should have been 10 days to ensure people can use it. It means literally nothing to those of us who always have a sub anyway....

That's funny cos my psn expired on Friday 😅

@nomither6 it cost money to run servers the money they make from consoles and acc and games allows them make new games. Stop trying to get things for free online play will never be free again if u want the hack 2011 again servers are not cheap to keep up. Everytime there something about ps plus u always moaning about paying stop paying it

@Lukeded there no longer is a PS+ sale... only for those increasing their tier...

@Titntin I completely agree... given that most people in the real world game outside the working week - 5 days seems the least useful (and cheapest) and most galling spit in the eye you can get.

For me - I actually didn't get impacted that much as I was able to play my SP games just fine. However, a huge number of players are subscribed to PS+ because they need to (to play non F2P) games. They will get nothing out of this, other than a frustrating weekend, and a lower opinion of Sony.

@Slayer25c He's got a point though. Most titles also play on PC and the PC is a valid high tech gaming option. If it's financially viable to have free online play on PC, then it also is to have online free on playstation. It exists to help support their store and digital sales which make Sony money hand over fist. The justification for charging us for this sales network and the servers that support it has greatly diminished since this was introduced, and if one platform can manage fine without charging the end user, then all of them can.
I rarely criticise the way Sony do business, but on this issue, it's legacy charging simply because they can get away with it. I wish Microsoft hadn't started the practice.....

@thefourfoldroot1 I agree 24 hours is not the end of the world... so when are we going to hear about how it happened, and why it won't just keep happening. Sony need to stop with the head-in-the-sand comms strategy.

@nomither6 You’re not being charged to use your own internet. You’re being charged to use their service.

I bought a car, why isn’t the fuel free!!??

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare
I’m sure a day outage every year or more may keep happening. Not too bothered by that level of (in)frequency, but do agree that Sony’s communication on this and all issues is terrible.

Didn't effect me as I was playing Dragon Quest 3 HD and the Switch during that down time but il sure as hell take those 5 free days 👍.

5 extra days is functionally useless. I stack my subs and have had it running for years, so it just means I’ll get an extra 5 days at the end of it, whenever that may be, years in the future.

It was down for a day for me, which realistically cost me 33p. A comp for 5 days is worth £1.65.

But again I’m not realistically ever seeing that comp come back as it’s just pushed to end of my contract, which is years down the line and so practically I’m not ever going to see it.

Was it a hardship for me to not play something online for a day? No.
Was it a hardship to see my son upset because he couldn’t play Fortnite with his friends? Yes.
Is a fundamentally useless comp worth seeing him upset? No.

@FinneasGH Perhaps your son needs other hobbies if this is enough to cause upset in the family that he can’t play a game for a single day.

@BiosNova He spends the rest of his week studying and working and doing other clubs, to enable him to have his one free night off a week to play with his friends.

@Nakatomi_Uk "they should fund the costs of servers, maintenance, upgrades etc themselves"

Yes these multi billion companies should pay with their own money instead of charge extra on their costumers to play online. They made billions of profit every year. So it's part of their service for their consumers who already paid for their products.

Ironicly here we are with another PSN outage. Where all the PS+ subscribers money if Sony can't even prevent this outage???

@PuppetMaster You will never ever prevent DOS attacks if that's what it was it could have been a severe failure or upgrade that didn't work it could have been many many things that went wrong. The money from subs will go towards other games, again server costs maintaining the servers etc you clearly have no idea at all how it works. The may earn billions but they are under close scrutiny how how they spend it because they are like many other companies ran by and with shareholders in mind first and foremost.

If you think in today's world internet attacks shouldn't happen then your living in a different world

This is not good enough, I won’t be renewing my ps plus went it runs this month

@KillerBoy nobody cares buddy. Move along now.

@get2sammyb yes I had issue last black Friday where I couldn't renew at the current price for plus and could any upgrade to extra with discount for the remaining few days of the plan

There is a lot of grown ass people throwing their toys out over one day.

@Marquez I did specifically say 'for those that don't currently subscribe'.
For those of us that subbed to psnow and have never been without the service since, it makes zero difference.

Whatever though, it's not gonna spoil my day, but it's certainly not redemption for Sony locking me out of playing £1000's of pounds worth of games that I bought and paid for.

Have a great day mate 😄

@DennisReynolds 5 days is not enough for the hardship we have had to endure. I demand at least a years free ps plus

I'm the same as @Member_the_game, and am unable to stack subscriptions. Last time the dates did not align, I bought 3 months or monthly subscriptions and then let it expire when they were on sale.

@daveofduncan clearly you do enough to leave a comment

@Member_the_game I'm on the Deluxe tier (no Premium in Australia due to no streaming) and was able to extend my sub by a year at the discounted rate in early December, so it now expires late next year. I'd checked a week earlier and it didn't look like it was going to apply the discount, so I don't know if they changed the terms or what. Either way, it's worth giving it another shot.

This may be a silly question but how is that even compensation if you're a subscriber anyway? If your subscription ends it automatically renews, 5 days later or not. Still got money coming out of your account that week 🤷🏻‍♂️

@thefourfoldroot1
That depends of course, first of all what do they have to tell you? Is that exciting to know? Or can they use their time better to work on a solution behind the scenes. I don't care at all why psn was down, what I do care about is that it will work again, and that's what it does now anyway? Problem solved. When xbox is down I never read anything about it but when it happens with Playstation it's on all the news sites in the world.

5 days makes no difference to me as I have 34 months remaining, all pre paid PS+ Premium. I bought the digital codes back when they were priced at £99.99 and were discounted on Ebay at £63.99. So I bought 4 cards.

Perfectly reasonable. 5 free days for the loss of 1? Excellent. Thanks Sony.

@TommyNL
Just say why it went down, whether there were any bad actors, confirm people’s details are secure etc.

I don’t really care about the specific reasons either, but it’s a matter of general respect.

Beyond that though, their communication is generally pitiful. Even when not saying anything brings bad PR, or even just means an opportunity is lost to drum up a excitement.

It’s like they sacked all their coms and PR people to save money.

@breakneck you just pay full price for anything any time do you? Not shop around for better price? You're throwing money away if that's the case.

Getting the best price and taking advantage of deals is just being savvy. Everyone should do it. Most people do do it

@get2sammyb if the sale applies to you that's great, pretty sure the last big discount was only available to "new" customers, those without an existing PSplus

Didn’t they also give away some extra free games the last time we had an extended outage like this?

The added 5 days is fine, but I don’t need more Monday through Friday game time. I want my Saturday back! 😜

Sounds fair to me. As a big Helldivers 2 fan the one day outage (on H2’s anniversary) was an inconvenience but the other game I’m currently playing is the offline Phantom Brave The Lost Hero and that worked fine.

I really think it should have been 7 days - only for the fact to cover those that game at the weekend only.

Edit: @Titntin just realised you said the same thing (for 10 days, but same reasoning)

About reducing the psplus 1 year to what it was or add another month for the psplus sony.word up son

@Rog-X
I think XBox were the ones who started locking online play behind a paywall 1st!
And, though it doesnt excuse Sony locking away cloud saves, if Xbox could get away with more - ie if they had a big enough (or maybe even growing) market share these days - im sure they would try!

The amount of grown adults i see throwing a tantrum over not being able to play games for 1 day... Not only on this site but on reddit etc. too...
People seriosuly need to touch grass and consider seeing a shrink if not being able to game one day makes them this upset.

5 days compensation is very generous, legally they're not required to give you anything so be happy with it.

@nomither6 Yea, everyone should get everything free. You don't need PSN to play fortnite and I'm sure it's the same for other f2p games. ** Sick of this culture that seems to have popped up after covid that believes they should get everything for free. Like what else do u expect for free? Maybe a mobile or even your broadband paid for? *** No, they're businesses giving people a service, why shouldn't they get paid for it? Like why would Sony not want to get back the money they're paying to MS to host their services? Hasn't happened since 2011 and it was only down for a day.

** Edit:
Your playing a free game and getting free online. What compensation do u think u should be given for the nothing that you're spending?

*** Edit:
Furloughing people was the worst thing. Has given them a sense that they should get everything free and other people will pay for them.

@Mikey856 5 free days not enough?

Edit: How does 1 day outage in how many years = **** service?

@Rog-X And if MS hadn’t started charging people to use the internet on their consoles (remember when they required XBL to watch Netflix? Pepperidge Farm remembers…and Sony never did that…) Sony wouldn’t have followed suit with what they did.

Hmmm…

@thefourfoldroot1
Yes, you are right that Sony does not always communicate very well. But I always think that they solve it well. Suppose there was a major hack and they immediately turned the button to protect our personal data. I can imagine that they would not immediately announce something like that. I always think that when a major service is down, the reactions of people online create a lot of hate towards the company. While we have no idea what is going on. And maybe there is a good reason for that. Microsoft also does not communicate when the Xbox network is down, but you never hear anything about that. But somehow Sony always has to explain everything and can never do anything right.

I appreciate the free ps+ time even if downtime didn't affect me in the slightest.

For me I just played on my Xbox and also did other non gaming related stuff instead. You know like a normal functioning and balanced adult would do. It's possible I might be an outlier though given the angst & tears I saw on social media.

@RiverGenie Normal people seem to be a dying breed.

I pay monthly, same day every month, where or when do I see these free days? I’m not bothered either way but it would be cool to know how it works.

@Rog-X FFS. Kiddo, we're talking about MS as the progenitor who popularized locking online play behind paid subscription and made tons of money from the practice. MS pretty much teached Sony and Nintendo; "Hey, you guys see what i'm doing here? I'm swimming on money from locking online play behind paid subscription. You guys are stupid af if you didn't follow me".

What MS did later down the line with free cloud saving etc aren't relevant here. It doesn't erase their status as the one who popularized locking online play behind subscription paywall.

Pretty sure PSN was down for a few days in a row a few years ago so it’s not exactly the second longest PSN has been down since 2011.

Worthless. Drop the price back as an apology.

@nomither6 Giving away stuff like this for free in today's economy doesn't make good business sense.

@THGhost they’re not giving away anything for free; we’ve already paid for our internet! We are using our own hard earned money to pay for our own internet, to connect to a GAME DEVELOPERS servers. sony has no place in that equation & it’s just pure greed/capitalism because they can get away with it.

@Nexozi you lost me at the first sentence , OUR OWN INTERNET IS NOT FREE, WEVE ALREADY PAID FOR IT! WEVE PAID SONY ALREADY FOR THE CONSOLE!

PSN is just a storefront that uses an account to make purchases and add other people, it has NOTHING to do with any online game servers

@Slayer25c See my last two responses. shilling is so pathetic, i hope sony is paying you well to keep the other crabs in the barrel with you

@Nexozi
Zoomers don't know how basic infrastructure works, that's why they are able to talk BS without getting a reality check in slap form.

@Mikey856 13 years ago and still not over it.

@CielloArc 100% Just have to look at messages from @nomither6 to see this is true. 😂

@Nexozi while you were offline on your console i was enjoying online on PC with my great internet service that i already paid for , so it’s all good.

@CielloArc Do tell

@nomither6 Strange comment. You know nothing about me but assume I haven't anything but a PS5 and poor Internet. As if I'd only have a PS5 Pro and nothing else. Come on son.

5 days is generous for less then 24 hours of downtime. I didn't expect anything in return. I think that is more than fair.

It's not gone on mine yet

More than fair. Didn't even notice personally so I'll gladly take the near extra week.

@BleedingDreamer should give an extra game on ps plus as a way of saying sorry a good game as well but sony are too tight for that

@nomither6 Well that is not the case and a 5 day extension is a good compensation.

And i was having fun playing offline with my physical game. 😁👍

I see the comments here are as I expected. So the psn network was down for a short time. I understand that it has inconvenienced a whole lot of people and are now getting salty because you've only got 5 days recompense from Sony. Nobody's forcing you to subscribe to the psn network so if its making you this unhappy just go buy a PC and play online for free (it'll only cost you around 8 psn subs to get a decent enough rig for the latest games to run.) I acknowledge that paying for a sub just to be able to play online sucks but I chose to invest into it without anybody holding a gun to my head so I don't think Sony "owe" me anything. This last couple of console generations have become so entitled it's almost a meme. I feel mankind progressed quicker from their neanderthal origins than this generation is currently advancing. Happy gaming 👍

I don't want the extra days cuz I will miss the sale date with them. Can I somehow refuse it?

@Member_the_game just buy it when it's on sale. It just adds the year to your remaining time. How I've always done it. This was the first year I had to pay full price as I was still working down the pro rated after the switch.

@Greifchen you really need to go back and read how psn subscription works. If you have time left when the next sale hits just buy it. It all banks.

@SSaunders1122 you didn't...you chose to explain it.

@Northern_munkey well looking at the amount of people that seem to not know you can bank subscription time really just tells me people need to disconnect. Sony and Microsoft should probably just cut the servers more often.

@SSaunders1122 yes you can bank subscription times but for some reason not everybody can take advantage of the sales. For instance my sub runs out at the end of November usually just before the sale kicks in and I can never stack another year's sub at the discounted price..I've had this discussion more than a few times with people who find themselves in the same boat so for you to get all high and mighty with them without knowing the circumstances is extremely presumptive of you.

@Northern_munkey you buy the code from Amazon or a local store offering a discount. Got to your account and put in the digital code and bam 12 months or how ever many you was paying for is added on. This is an old old trick. Nothing presumptuous about it. Yall just sound like rank amateurs calling yourself real gamers.

@Northern_munkey you know they don't just offer discounts for black friday right? You can add months to your service at any point. Not just when you run out dude.

@SSaunders1122 thankyou for talking to me like I'm a child. I responded to you in a reasonable way presuming you were an adult but I guess I was wrong. I bow down to your superior intellect and inferior attitude.

@Northern_munkey if that's talking to you like a child then sure guess i am. Also goes to show how soft society is if that's honestly how you feel.

@SSaunders1122 great chat. I'm going to leave it now so take care buddy 👍

What about people that aren't subscribed but we're still affected playing single play games

What bugged me most was that I couldn't register my freshly delivered disc drive to my Pro, and (like an idiot) I'd swapped my SSD and reset my original PS5 before setting the Pro up to be my only console. And because.... Sony? none of my digital games worked.
At least I got some decorating done though...

@SSaunders1122

The method you mention doesn’t work btw

@Greifchen okay little one. If you say so. Don't come here telling me I don't bank time with pre paid cards from gamestop and other places when they on sale.

@Dampsponge how were you affected playing single player games? Even the digital single player games were all playable unless they required a constant online connection. Not having a pop here but I'm genuinely interested as to how myself and many,many others were still able to play because the only people I can see being affected are those who specifically play online multiplayers.

@Titntin so - i could be talking out my <insert appropriate proverbial references> but as I see it, the difference is that on PC you are linking directly with the company's private servers... the cost is entirely born by them. Though ... even as I type that, I'm not sure (because Steam for example can disable your access to games if they chose to - which means it's not a 1:1 connection with the publisher/dev managed servers).

I had thought however, the situation on console is that all the multiplayer games are hosted on the AWS infrastructure; so it's not independent of Sony (or even XBox)... and I could be wrong, but I also understood that Steam (for example) actually takes a cut of the games sales to pay for the online multiplayer. In the case of Sony - it's a little more difficult, because they incorporate the income from the cosole (hardware), the income of the games (their commission) and the costs to AWS as part of that.

Now, I totally agree that the cost structure for that - even if it were true - would and should be near zero anyway (just based on scaling). So I'm sure they're fleecing a captured market. But I didn't think it's exactly the same as the PC ecosystem.

Or at least that is what I believed; which might be a load of BS.

@SSaunders1122

That was kind of my point though, for whatever reason it never allows me to stack my subscription.

For a bit of context, when the sale was on in January I was on PS Extra.... the only option available to me was to upgrade to PS Premium for the remainder of my subscription.

I had approximately 10 days left and with the discount I could upgrade for something like 33p.

I had to wait for the subscription to expire before it would let me buy a 12 months subscription at the discounted price.

I have now upgraded to Premium as it was only an extra £2 for the year so seemed almost silly not too.

Maybe now that I'm on Premium and I can't go up to a higher tier as such it might let me stack another year next time there's a sale on..... I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

But trust me I tried everything, other than being able to pay 33p to upgrade the last few remaining days it was impossible to do anything else

Where was the compensation when lizard squad further ruined Christmas years ago?

Man console players these days just get freebies handed to them over and over, i demand satisfaction sony for 2014 which was also a day of psn being offline on Christmas no less! Not some random day in February where people won't even be home.

@SSaunders1122 do not sure if you care about sales on PS+ or whether you just don't get bothered that much - but Sony haven't offered a sale on PS+ (at existing tiers) for over 2 years... they only offer discounts for new subscribers or people going to higher tiers. It's not about stacking - of course if you want to buy another 12 months subscription at 'normal'price - they will allow it (though from memory, I think they have a hard limit on how much you can stack these days).

For many people, they waited until the Black-Friday or Christmas sales to get discounts on 12 months. Those are now gone. Everything is built on the idea of elevating subscriptions, rather than rewarding subscription.

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare

That's exactly the situation I was in....I could upgrade to a higher tier with a discount but only for what remained of my subscription.

It wouldn't let me buy another year till the existing one ran out 🙂

@Member_the_game yep - if you had 1 month left - you'd be able to elevate your membership for a ~25% discount on 1 month... after that 1 month, you'd have to pay for the full price. You couldn't stack at even the elevated tier AFAIK.

The reason why I think Sony's offer for compensation is disingeuous is that for most people, they WILL retain a membership ad infinitum... so 5 days is meaningless, especially as it didn't even necessarily cover off on the prime loss days (Friday/Saturday).

For me - I didn't lose anything becuase I could still play the games I wanted to. My daughter however, couldn't download a game that she wanted to play. That's not a big issue - but for many people, they ONLY play multiplayer. I just think this is prime Sony on not reading the room - both in terms of communication (what was going on) and empathy (why many people were angry). They've gone full cut-throat on PS+ the last 2 years, and it reflects their view that nothing matters... so STFU and here's a trifle to satiate your pathetic lives (ok... that's hyperbolic projection).

My point is that it's not trivial to a lot of gamers... and it may not be Sony's fault... but they are sure feeling like it's time to feed the ducks... crumbs.

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare The costs of online game servers is met by the publisher on all platforms, PC or console. It is the same.

You are charged on console simply for online saves, using share button etc - not for hosting games.
Here is a quote from a destructoid article from when they introduced the charges on the PS4:

"After being asked what went into the decision to charge for online gameplay, Sony explained that online features and services are going to be a “big pillar” of the PS4 experience. They go on to note, “we’ve already talked about the share button, sharing features, second screens…if we continue to invest into online infrastructures, that costs money. If we continue free service for online multiplayer, from a business standpoint, there’s pressure to recover costs. That’s when we decided ‘let’s ask the people who are most active in playing online to share some of the cost so we can invest more.'”
https://www.destructoid.com/sony-explains-why-youll-have-to-pay-for-online-with-ps4/

Notice they are not talking about providing game servers, because they don't fund them. I didnt see any continual investment in online features?
It's just a rip off. They charge because MS did it first and they can. The cost of the paltry online features they offer does not justify the amount - imo.

@Northern_munkey

I couldn't play any single player at all. Every single one of them returned an error and would not start because the lack of server meant my license could not be checked. Same result all day.
This issue meant I could access any of my games, weather they were single player or not - I only checked all the ones on my main menu, but the result was consistent.

In my case it just meant I went and played Xbox, but if you didnt have that option, then it was a huge nuisance that meant your machine was a door stop.

@Titntin two things can be true - as I said, I'm just aware that all multiplayer games are hosted on AWS servers - not private (or dev-run servers). I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just saying, it doesn't say anything about who pays for those servers.

And don't get me wrong - I'm not trying to justify what Sony does, I'm just trying to understand if that's their business model.

@Titntin Were you using your primary console? I understand that if you tried using a non-primary console to play games, it would fail - regardless of the game.... because it needed to authenticate prior to allowing access (even if you had everything already downloaded).

My own experience was that almost everyting did work... and the things that didn't were a bit strange (like Telltale's Tale of the Borderlands didn't run for my son... then again... maybe that was because he wasn't the primary account holder on the console)...?

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare
Hey, I've told you what I know to be true, if you don't want to believe this, that's absolutely up to you. Most of these are run by Sony (the hoting provider) through PSN, but are financed by the publisher unless they want to be free of PSN's paywall like 'free' games or they want to use another server model. The cost to Sony is covered by the publisher and at the end of a games lifes, the publisher will tell Sony when they no longer want to pay for the server.

As for the games not working during the PSN outage, I'm pretty sure you've identified the issue I had - thanks. My wife logs in as me and switches whether our Pro or OG ps5 is my primary so she can play my games where she needs to. I only checked on the pro, and as I read about the outage anyway, I just smiled and played Indy on Xbox instead. It's highly likely my wife had the OG PS5 as my primary which would explain why the pro didnt work. 😁

@Titntin I think you have mis-interpreted my comments - I'm literally just expressing what I heard (and not providing any judgement) - and the link you provided didn't really address my point (and was about 12 years old... and I'm not even sure Sony had their deal with AWS at that point [though a quick check showed they were already in bed with AWS at the start of PS4 in Nov 2013])...

It's not that I didn't believe you... just that it seemed we were talking about two different things (overall value of their online membership, and how the operated multiplayer servers). If it wasn't clear in my comment, I was talking out of genuine curiosity.

@Titntin if you don't mind me asking - when did you last have dealings between Sony and AWS. I'm curious as to how things have changed; especially with the subtle shift to streamed services to the Portal.

Edit - I appreciate that Sony don't publish there cost structures - but I've not seen a single thing where they pass on the costs of hosting MP servers (as compared to store-front costs). This would be really interesting to me, if there were some bread-crumbs to follow.

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare Thats OK mate - I did already edit my reply because when I came back and read it it sounded more frictous than intended.
I only searched for a link about the charging for PSN back in PS4 days as I remember quite clearly they stated it was to 'develop online services' and not to provide multi-player servers.
I still have dev friends and reached out to one earlier to confirm this is how it still works, but havent had a reply.

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare For clarity, I've worked with Sony as a dev, but I have never had dealing with AWS and I never worked on net code.

@Titntin guess I was very lucky because I had no issues at all. EA wrc was fine as was v rising which I mostly played all weekend. The only game that didn't was PoE 2 obviously.

@Northern_munkey Yes mate, as Oz_Who_Dat_Dere said, it looks likely it was because my pro was not my primary machine at the time My misses swaps which console is primary so she can play my games.... I never keep tabs as it doesn't normally matter to me 👍

Yeah I don't think this is very altruistic. Many of us have annual subscriptions that expire in time for the annual discounts. This will push some of us into paying considerably more for our subscription in November. Boo.

@Member_the_game okay so another country and I can't really speak for the pound spenders of the world. But can yall go and buy the cards from a store when they go on sale? Don't have to pop the code in right then. Just make sure you do before it expires. I buy mine from a local store and bank them that way.

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare i buy the cards at a store. Stores do still offer them here in America. I can not speak for other countries.

@SSaunders1122

Here in the UK we definitely used to be able to buy the subscriptions via a code for example on Amazon or Shop to, or CD keys....... As you suggested you could buy the code and keep it to activate it whenever you were ready. The codes were often a lot cheaper than buying directly from the PSN

But Sony seems to have put a stop to all that now, you can only buy PSN store credit via 3rd party retailers now not a subscription.

If I want to buy an actual subscription, the only place I can do that is on the PSN.

If you can still do it the old way wherever you are then you are very lucky and I suggest you make the most of it whilst you still can lol.

The only loophole I can think of for us is that occasionally, Amazon for example will have a sale on where you could buy £100 PSN store credit for £75, you could then use that store credit towards your next subscription.

(Just for reference £100 is equivalent to roughly $125 at current exchange rates)

@Member_the_game damn. Sorry about all that. My bad. I guess I just didn't know how rough yall had it over there. I figured Sony would treat yall similar to us being as much as yall game and line their pockets. I honestly retract my statement. I'd delete but man this conversation got quite big and scrolling is taking a bit lol

@nomither6 People's internet has nothing to do with Sony though. Stop being so pedantic 💀

@THGhost SO WHY ARE WE PAYING TO USE IT!! if it has nothing to do with sony (WHICH IT DOESNT, THATS MY POINT) then why is there a fee to use OUR INTERNET TO CONNECT TO A GAME DEVELOPERS SERVERS?

sony has NO PART in that. ain’t nothing pedantic about taking issue with being nickeled and dimed because of greed.

@SSaunders1122

Don't worry about deleting any previous comments but I do appreciate your apology.

Sorry for the long winded replies but I just tried my best to explain the situation in detail

@nomither6 Dude, calm down. Sony is a business, so it's not in their best interest to give stuff away for free. It's as simple as that.

@THGhost THEYRE NOT GIVING AWAY ANYTHING , THEYRE JUST CHARGING FOR IT!! THEYRE CHARGING FOR YOUR INTERNET. ITS ALREADY YOURS!

Yes, they are. Read the article; and your PS+ subscription ≠ your Internet Service Provider. Now go have a lie down 🫠