PlayStation Plus Essential

Sony is making some huge changes to its PlayStation subscription platform, to take on Xbox’s Gamepass. Yesterday, the Japanese company has announced, starting from June, it will offer three new subscription tiers for its users: PlayStation Plus Essential, PlayStation Plus Extra, and PlayStation Plus Premium. Let’s take a closer look at what each has to offer. 

The PlayStation Essential is a combination of PlayStation Plus and PlayStation Now. The former is already available in India and offers two new games every month (three if you’re on PS5), along with cloud storage and online multiplayer access. 

The latter, on the other hand, was never made available to our shores. However, in the US and Europe, PlayStation Now offers the capability of cloud streaming. Could this mean Sony might finally be introducing its cloud gaming platform in India? We’ll get to that in a bit. But the good news here is, existing users of PlayStation Plus will be automatically upgraded to Plus Essential, without any additional cost.  

PlayStation Plus Extra

Along with cloud storage and online multiplayer access, the Plus Extra tier will come bundled with a huge catalogue of games. Sony claims it’ll offer over 400 of the best  PS4 and PS5 titles. This may include games like Death Stranding, God of War, Marvel’s Spider-Man, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Mortal Kombat 11, Returnal and more. Sony has also confirmed that this catalogue will be regularly updated. 

PlayStation Plus Premium

With the Premium tier, not only do you get the stacked benefits of Plus Essential and Plus Extra, but you’ll also get access to additional 340+ classic titles. This will be a catalogue of original PlayStation, PS2, PSP, and PS4 games. However, the PS5 is only backwards-compatible with PS4 titles, which could change by the roll-out of PlayStation Plus Premium

But there’s a catch 

While speaking to gamesindustry.biz, CEO Jim Ryan, confirmed that Sony won’t be bringing day Day 1 releases of new titles on any of its titles on its subscription platform, like Xbox’s Gamepass. 

How much will it cost me?

If we convert the US prices for Plus Extra and Plus Premium it should come to around Rs 7,600 and Rs 9,100 annually. The company also offer a 3-month and a 6-month plan. However, we’re still waiting for Sony to release the region-specific pricing here.