Sony recently announced that it is increasing the price of its subscription service, PlayStation Plus from November 2023 onwards. The service has three tiers that come with their own perks, Essential, Extra, and Premium. The price for the cheapest PS+ plan went from $60 to $80, the mid-tier went from $100 to $135, and the Premium plan from $120 to $160. Clearly, the price hike is far from minor, and concern over the changes are absolutely warranted.
Why Did Sony Increase The Price Of PlayStation Plus?
Sony’s explanation for these changes is particularly thin. The Japanese publisher simply states:
“This price adjustment will enable us to continue bringing high-quality games and value-added benefits to your PlayStation Plus subscription service.”
This corporate reasoning does not explain much, but there is more on that below. Making matters even worse, Sony made it impossible for people to compound their PS+ subscriptions last year. So now you can only renew your PS+ subscription when it ends and not buy a lot on sales.
Microsoft did the same a few months ago, and although it was not officially confirmed, the reason for the price bump for Game Pass was the massive day-one titles. Starfield is a great example of the level of games making it to Microsoft’s service right on release. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate went from $14.99 per month to $16.99. The base Xbox Game Pass for Console also moved from $9.99 a month up to $10.99. Plus, with the acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the number of games that will be on Game Pass will likely go up, and along with it, the price.
So if either subscriptions end up increasing the price, users should rightfully expect an improvement in the quality of the service as well.
Why The PS+ Price Increase Is Unacceptable
Sony has been quite forthcoming regarding day-one releases, especially exclusives. According to Sony, the only way for PS+ to remain reasonably priced is to keep all the big games out of the Premium catalog. A great example of this is Final Fantasy 16. Although it is not a PlayStation exclusive, there is a timed exclusivity, yet the game is nowhere near the PlayStation Catalog. In a similar fashion, the upcoming Spider-Man 2 will also not be making it to the service, making the price increase even more unacceptable, since the quality has not increased, yet the price is going up regardless.
It seems the only reason why Sony increased the price is because it was now cheaper than Xbox Game Pass. And Sony is known for making confounding decisions that are often inexplicable to fans, like the recent PlayStation Portal. But this is clearly just a price bump for the sake of it.
Unless Sony starts adding more games to the Extra and Premium catalog while introducing some day-one releases, the value proposition of PlayStation Plus will not hold up to the competition. And even long-term subscribers will likely drop out since the quality of the monthly free games is questionable at best, and may not warrant even the lowest $80 price tag. The free games for September and even August are a great example. Not to mention that without PS+, PlayStation 4 and 5 owners can’t even play anything online, making the new price feel more like extortion than anything else.
