Quietly inserted into the bottom of a blog post announcing September’s PS Plus games is a very unwelcome announcement from Sony. The PlayStation platform holder has decided to increase the prices of 12-month subscriptions for the three PlayStation Plus membership tiers.
There was no separate blog post detailing the price increases and not even a heading for this particular section of the blog post. It’s almost as if Sony hoped that we would skip over this part.
We also wanted to let you know that starting September 6 we will be increasing the price for PlayStation Plus 12-month subscriptions globally across all benefit plans. This price adjustment will enable us to continue bringing high-quality games and value-added benefits to your PlayStation Plus subscription service.
Here are the new prices for PlayStation Plus 12-month subscriptions across the different tier plans.
PlayStation Plus Essential 12-Month Subscription
79.99 USD | 71,99 Euro | 59.99 GBP | 6,800 Yen
PlayStation Plus Extra 12-Month Subscription
134.99 USD | 125,99 Euro | 99.99 GBP | 11,700 Yen
PlayStation Plus Premium 12-Month Subscription
159.99 USD | 151,99 Euro | 119.99 GBP | 13,900 Yen
Based on the UK (GBP) prices, the Essential 12-month subscription is increasing by £10.00 a month. Extra is increasing by £16 a month and Premium is increasing by £20 a month.
Definitely not what we wanted to see amidst a cost-of-living crisis.
It should be noted that Sony has only announced price increases to the 12-month subscription plans, so the price if you pay per month or every 3 months is not changing. Even with the increase in prices, you are still making decent savings over subscribing on a monthly or 3-monthly basis.
As Sony has stated in the PlayStation Blog post, the price changes will take effect from September 6th. The blog post was published on August 30th, meaning we only got 7 days’ notice before the price increases take effect. Unless you just had that kind of money lying around, it’s not giving people much time to but another 12 months and take advantage of the current prices.
Will The Price Increase Harm PS Plus Subscription Numbers?
Possibly. For those who can easily afford the subscription price the increase probably won;t matter much. But if we look at not in terms of financial outlay for value, a lot of people might stop to think if they are really getting value from the higher tiers of PlayStation Plus, like Extra and Premium.
I’ve been subscribed to the Premium tier since it launched and if I was to be totally honest with myself, I would probably say I don’t really get much value from it.
I still want to play a lot of the latest AAA games, which I have to buy separately. I don’t really play that many games from the Classics Catalogue, Mostly I download, play for 10 minutes, realise the game isn’t that great and delete it. I also don’t play a great deal of games from the Games Catalogue included in the Extra plan. I did recently play Outriders though and put quite a number of hours in to get the Platinum.
I think the new price increases might make people sit down and think if they are truly getting value from the Extra and Premium tiers. And Sony might find a lot of subscribers downgrading to the Essential Tier.
