In the past I’ve always been very strongly in favor of the idea of buying mostly physical games and media. Don’t get me wrong, there will always be issues with ANY way you consume media. Hard drives stop spinning, SSDs die, discs rot, etc. Recently I’ve had a very strong change of heart. As many of you who have watched me and read my articles for awhile will know I moved houses recently to a new place where I have a lot more space for my game collection. However my collection has actually grown to such a degree that I finally had to decide to let a lot of things go. I was originally being incredibly selective with what I decided to sell, but one thing actually changed my mind, Sony announced their new tiers for Playstation Plus. I figured if I use a combination of emulation for more retro games, and PSPlus premium it’d give me access to more games than I’ve probably ever had in my whole life. I sold the majority of my physical media aside from a few items.. After doing so I chose to buy a Roku Ultra, and a Netflix subscription, as well as paying for PSPlus Premium and I set up a PC I bought last month as a dedicated emulation box.
I took a bit of a leap of faith in deciding to do these things. The real question though is does the NEW PSPlus actually live up to the hype?
Sony’s new PSPlus tiers can be broken down as follows:
| Essential – $10 | Extra – $15 | Premium – $18 |
| * Monthly games * Online play * Discounts on certain PSN items * Exclusive content * Cloud saves * Share play * The Playstation Plus Collection – PS5 ONLY * Game help (whatever that means) * Free Shipping direct from Playstation | * Monthly games * Online play * Discounts on certain PSN items * Exclusive content * Cloud saves * Share play * The Playstation Plus Collection – PS5 ONLY * Game help (whatever that means) * Free Shipping direct from Playstation * Game Catalog | * Monthly games * Online play * Discounts on certain PSN items * Exclusive content * Cloud saves * Share play * The Playstation Plus Collection – PS5 ONLY * Game help (whatever that means) * Free Shipping direct from Playstation * Game Catalog * Classics Catalog * Game Trials * Cloud Streaming |
ESSENTIAL
Essential is basically what PSPlus has been for a very long time. If you were happy with it as it was before then there’s no real need to change. Regarding the “free shipping” thing I doubt too many people order their consoles and equipment straight from the manufacturer so that’s something I doubt would come in handy for most people. The monthly games are awesome (most of the time) and while it feels like a very underutilized feature, Share Play is one of the coolest things I think Sony has done in general with the PSPlus service. I know it’s not a NEW feature, but I have to brag about it. It’s basically Parsec but built right into my console, VERY COOL! As a person who has had issues in the past with data corruption on older consoles, cloud saves are a very appreciated feature which I would consider “essential” I honestly have no real idea what “game help” means, is it like a modern version of the Nintendo Power hotline? I have no clue! The discounts aren’t really anything to write home about. I think waiting for sales on the PSN store makes more sense than paying more to pay less anyways, the “exclusive content” they speak of is mainly little bits of DLC for games here and there, it’s a nice bonus but nothing huge. Overall I’d say PSPlus Essential for $10 certainly won’t leave you disappointed, and it’s named PERFECTLY. If you just want to play online with friends and increase the functionality of your system it’s perfect.
EXTRA
PSPlus Extra is the exact same as Essential but with an included game library of PS4 and some PS5 games. The selection is exactly what it needs to be, a ton of really incredible games like; Final Fantasy 15 Royal Edition, Spider-Man Miles Morales, the Batman Arkham series, Uncharted and MANY MORE! For an extra $5 I’d actually say it’s very much worth it.
PREMIUM
This is the tier that I foresee to be the most polarizing. It features “game trials” as an additional benefit which to me feels actually kind of scummy; demos are normally free and should remain as such, that’s all a trial is. Premium also features a catalog of “classic” games from the PSX, PS2, and PSP. I have admittedly mixed feelings about the classics library. I think it COULD Become great, but right now it’s really just a handful of games. They’re mostly good games like the Jak and Daxter trilogy, Oddworld, Rogue Galaxy, etc. However there’s just not very many of them. I hope Sony continues to add to this library and fatten it up overtime however. The final new feature of the Premium tier is game streaming, now I know what you’re thinking “LOL! Who wants to stream a game? It’s gonna have horrid lag!” but I was VERY pleasantly surprised when I tested it out. I first tried it with the 2.5D Strider remake for PS4 and it felt no different than running the game on actual hardware. I then tested it out on Batman Arkham Origins for PS3 and while it had some very small hiccups, I really didn’t feel like I ever lacked control over anything happening in the game. Overall I doubt most people will actually want to pay $18 a month before tax for PSPlus Premium, but aside from the low quantity of games in the classics library I actually think it’s gonna work perfectly for my needs. I chose this plan because I’m going mostly all digital with my media to save space and I wanted to have access to AS MANY GAMES AS POSSIBLE partially because I can be very A.D.D. with my gaming habits, but also because I run a website and it gives me the ability to wake up and say “Hmmm I want to try out BLANK game on a Nathan Plays” and then I just can. It’s clearly not for most people.
MY CONCLUSION
Overall for the majority of users I’d recommend PSPlus Extra, but for the more “hardcore” gamers out there who want EVERY GAME POSSIBLE and have a very fast network connection Premium will be satisfactory. Despite my small critiques I really like this new version of the Playstation Plus service, I also foresee it being WAAAAY more successful than Playstation Now since PSNow went mostly under the radar by the majority of gamers.
“You were supposed to destroy the Sith Nathan, not join them!”
YOU UNDERESTIMATE MY POWER!