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Recently, Sony announced and implemented a price increase on its subscription service, PlayStation Plus. First introduced in 2010, it has gone through many iterations over the years. Today, it is a tiered system that gives PlayStation users different benefits, including free trials, discounts, and a changing games catalog available for download. However, users are becoming increasingly frustrated with the lack of features and content that the service provides, and that frustration has only inflated with the price hike. So, let’s take a look at five ways Sony could improve PlayStation Plus to make fans more content with the service they’re paying for.
PlayStation Plus Essential Needs Quality Games
Right before the price hike, Sony announced the three free games for September 2023’s PlayStation Plus Essential offering were Saints Row, Black Desert – Traveler Edition, and Generation Zero. Saints Row was critically panned after releasing last year, and Volition Games, the developer of Saints Row, closed its doors this month. While Saints Row is on the low end when it comes to the quality of games usually offered on the lower tier, Sony could improve PlayStation Plus if there was never an “off month”.
They don’t have to be the latest titles, and they don’t need to be first-party titles, but games that are generally well-received critically or by the audience would improve Essential substantially. Games that launch on Essential, like Bugsnax or Meet Your Maker, are boons to the service as well, and while games like Tchia and Sea of Stars have launched on the Extra service, having a game continue to launch on Essential a few times a year would go a long way.
PlayStation Plus Premium Needs to Contain More Classic Titles
PlayStation Plus Premium gives users access to many classic games from the PlayStation, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation Portable. But there are many games that aren’t on the service that Sony should consider porting or emulating to improve PlayStation Plus. The main reason the lack of classics is an issue is because the games coming to this tier aren’t always classics. While we received Twisted Metal and Twisted Metal 2 in time with the series based on the franchise, we also reported on the meager offerings of August 2023.
August saw the addition of three games, MediEvil: Resurrection, Ape Escape: On the Loose, and Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice. While fans of Bigbig Studios’ sequel to Pursuit Force might have been fulfilled, different versions of both Ape Escape and MediEvil are already on the service. At the very least we should be able to play games that were already available on the PlayStation 3 Store, like the original Crash Bandicoot and Spyro games. Or maybe others that aren’t a licensing nightmare in 2023.
Paid Online Shouldn’t be Part of the Service
How did companies get away with charging for the ability to play games online? We pay for the internet, we pay for the consoles, and we pay for the games (or the service we play them through). That’s seemingly not enough with Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo all charging subscription fees for online services. It’s understandable that the three companies own the platforms, but is the cut they receive from digital purchases not enough?
It would be a massive power play if Sony were to suddenly pull the online feature from PlayStation Plus and roll the cost back to what it was previously. This most likely wouldn’t occur, but a world in which PlayStation made two consumer-friendly moves at once would shift the needle and greatly improve the service. You’d like to think that the goodwill earned just by removing the online features would see subscriptions skyrocket. Although it could always have the opposite effect let’s choose to be optimistic.
PlayStation 3 Games Need to be Native
One big caveat with the Premium titles is that the PlayStation 3 games are only available to stream, and you can’t download them to your console. On top of that, some territories don’t even have that option and don’t have any PS3 titles at all. Sony needs to figure out a way to emulate those games, give them trophies, and add them to the Premium tier of the service.
A large part of why the price hike was negatively received is because of the current perceived value of the service. To improve that perceived value Sony should dip into the PlayStation back catalog and make them available to any player who joins PlayStation Plus. Especially those games that are just stuck on the PS3.
The Perceived Value Needs to Greatly Outweigh the Cost
PlayStation Plus is worth it. If you don’t buy new games and only use PlayStation Plus, you are getting an experience worth more than $1000 after adding everything up. But, because of the price hike up to $79.99, $134.99, and $159.99 per year PlayStation users (or at least the vocal ones) aren’t seeing how the service is worth the money they are now expected to pay for it.
Currently, the Essential tier gets three games per month. As we mentioned previously, the games we get do vary in quality, but we usually get at least three games. In the days when we used to get PS3, PlayStation Vita, and PlayStation 4 games, most months the users would be able to download six different titles. PlayStation Plus Essential providing more titles per month, or at least a consistent increase in their quality, should meet the standards of the average PlayStation user.
Sony could even add new features to the service. Adding first-party games to PlayStation Plus would probably calm many people, but Sony has always been averse to this idea, for good reason. A secondary idea is adding downloadable content to the service. What if Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores was added to PlayStation Plus the month it was released? After all, there aren’t physical copies of the content, and it’s much lower in price than a full game. Of course, everything we’ve mentioned here would increase the perceived value of PlayStation Plus, but the real way Sony would win back the fans is by lowering the price, not increasing it.
