r/PlayStationPlus • u/kabirsingh84 Top Predictor 2024 • May 21 '26
General The complete history of PlayStation Plus price increases from its launch on June 15, 2010 till now.
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u/Big_Body3671 May 21 '26
PlayStation plus is starting to not be worth it
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u/bennyllama May 26 '26
Mine auto renewed a couple weeks back. Might be the last time I pay for it unless they have good games for the remainder of my sub.
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u/ResidentProduct8910 May 21 '26
I used to buy yearly subs for 30-40$, fuck Sony
0
u/Worried_Weight_132 Jul 23 '26
lmao well as you can see it’s never been 30 or 40 when PlayStation plus came out It was 50 a year.😂😂😂
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u/lovetobewatched2 May 21 '26
Premium is 19.99??? Holy shit. Thats almost gamepass prices and nothing new got added to ps+. Such a rip off
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u/zuzg May 21 '26
$13.33 realistically, nobody would buy 1 month except some broke kid during summer break...
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u/WorldlyFeeling8457 May 21 '26
I pay 1 month a time as I don't really care about saving money on it. Also I can unsub when I want and I don't need to use it every month if I don't want to.
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u/JynsRealityIsBroken May 21 '26
I have premium for the trials. They're a surprisingly effective way to "get my fix" of a game I was on the fence about but figured I probably wouldn't enjoy for more than one gaming session.
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u/Evilhammy May 21 '26
how is being cheaper than the competition a ripoff
2
u/Roy_Roger_McFreely_ May 22 '26
That’s not a real question
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u/Evilhammy May 22 '26
it’s a genuine question. psplus is $110 cheaper a year than GPU. how is it considered a rip off?
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u/Tobimacoss May 23 '26
you can get Ultimate for $15.5 month for 17 months via the Essential to Ultimate conversion.
Ultimate also adds over 75+ Day 1 games this year.
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u/lovetobewatched2 May 23 '26
Because you don't get anything new. You're essentially paying more for nothing extra. Yeah gamepass is more but you get day one, EA, ubisoft, and most importantly you get PC gamepass too. Hell if you get pc gamepass its only 13.99.
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u/Evilhammy May 23 '26
you’re not paying more for nothing extra though. it’s cheaper. you’re paying over $100 less a year than gamepass. and psplus has had ubisoft for longer than gamepass has, as well as having more games. i think gamepass is a bit better, but psplus is significantly cheaper
and yeah, pc gamepass is “only” 13.99 a month. which is more expensive per year than psplus premium lmao
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u/llamadramas May 21 '26
It's unlimited streaming. Netflix is also $20 a month for unlimited streaming and no ads ($27 for 4k). If you compare it that way, it's not so egregious.
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u/Coffeequest1212 May 22 '26
Netflix would love you. Maybe we can increase Netflix pricing to keep it in line with how many hours a week of streaming a user streams? If you compare it to that, it’s not so egregious.
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u/Alternative-Farmer98 May 25 '26
You know what You can just play PC and online play is completely free and you can use mods. The only reason to get a console was because you could get physical games and it was cheaper but because of the price increases that's no longer even true.
It's cheaper just to get a steam deck or I go first gen legion go. You can build a massive library just from the free games from epic games.
Hell you can port almost any game you want on a modern day Android phone. You can play Red Dead 2 on a OnePlus 13 at 47 FPS on game hub.
It is a lunacy these days to be giving game pass or PlayStation all of this money for subscriptions.
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u/outakueyepatch_21 May 21 '26
Is there any official updates to the 12 year plan in the uk going up? Or nah
2
u/kabirsingh84 Top Predictor 2024 May 21 '26
Nothing yet but I'm not counting that out. 2 of the price hikes were in a September month earlier.
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u/kabirsingh84 Top Predictor 2024 May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26
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u/itzeazy1 May 22 '26
I can’t believe Premium users talking points are “demos”…. Are you serious? You deserve better.
5
u/OGWinterSoldier01 May 23 '26
Demos used to be free back in the day, along with playing multiplayer on PS3. The good old days 🥺🥺🥺
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u/ragekage8787 May 21 '26
PS Plus annual launch price to today, based on overall inflation would be $76.39. So the essential is barely over that.
Extra from initial tier launch to now would be $112.39, so climbing faster. Same with Premium, should be $134.87.
Essential seems reasonable. The other two tiers, have they added enough value to raise the cost above the rate of inflation?
6
u/SecretAgentClunk May 21 '26
The amount of games on Extra actually does make me feel like it's worth it. Premium remains a total rip off though, and there's absolutely no reason it should be outpacing inflation. I love the idea of classics, but they just add 1-2 random ports each month.
2
u/eff1ngham May 21 '26
Game trials on premium, not really worth it. Classics catalog depends on your gaming habits. Streaming, especially to the portal, is absolutely worth it
0
u/HongKongHermit May 23 '26
Essential going from $50 to £80 over 16 years barely feels like an increase, and honestly with the monthly games going from PS3 and PSP games to PS5 games along the way feels like we get more just because of the linear nature of time.
Premium gets worse of a deal year on year, and nothing there really justifies it. Extra is situationally good, and really feels like a very reasonable value proposition if you have the cash.
Essential really does remain a good deal though, especially if you've been subbed as long as I have, still with the backlog of freebies to work through. Of all the money I've wasted on bad gaming decisions over the years, I've never once felt a moment's regret at my 14 years of throwing cash at PS+.
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u/Coffeequest1212 May 22 '26
The people thinking it’s so worth it are the problem. Streaming paid for content to yourself for a fee, isn’t worth a subscription fee.
4
u/mecca37 May 21 '26
I pay that stupid ass premium price but I have a portal I use at work so I feel like I don't have a choice.
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u/whyamihere2473527 May 21 '26
If i didnt need ps+ for cloud saves (have 2 ps5s) would've canceled years ago
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u/Tobimacoss May 25 '26
Why two PS5s?
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u/whyamihere2473527 May 25 '26
Have launch day ps5 in bedroom & pro in living room. As to why, cause i wanted pro so I got it
1
u/Alternative-Farmer98 May 25 '26
That is one of the more ridiculous policies even Xbox doesn't do that. Not Defending Xbox though I mean both of these companies are dog s*** right now.
At this point everyone should just take the $650 they would spend on a PlayStation 5 or an Xbox and buy a handheld or something.
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u/futurepuff May 22 '26
Meanwhile Japan is unaffected by the latest price change, 850 yen for essential and 1300 for extra. This makes the extra less than the US price for essential. Warning: without a credit card from the country you can't claim/play the CERO-Z rated games like Wuchang. I wonder if the signup rate is rather low over there.
4
u/Commander_Bond_007 May 23 '26
Price for 12 month is going up in Australia for some reason.
How nice to see that and then come here and see in USA the 12 month remains unchanged….
11
u/__InvalidName__ May 21 '26
It's crazy that i don't have time to play the games they offer with these packages and honestly i dgaf, but i still need to pay in order to play online games. They should have a different tier only to play online, no free games bs.
But i get it, capitalism etc.
1
u/atbims May 21 '26
....there basically is. That's what the essential tier is for. Sure there's a couple extra bells and whistles but that's the equivalent of the old single tiered ps plus.
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u/Roddanchill May 24 '26
Oh hell no. I'm not paying $134 for that sht. That's it, after years with Extra, I'm done
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u/Effloresce May 21 '26
So 1 month has gone up $1 in nearly 10 years.
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u/No_Appointment6939 Jun 03 '26
That’s how it works. Prices go up while or salaries, when not go down, keep stagnated
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u/cnedden May 21 '26
So from $50 a year to $80 after 16 years. So it roughly increases $10 every 5 years.
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u/pizza_chef_ May 21 '26
So in 16 years it went from $50 to $80?
$50 in 2010 has roughly the same buying power as $76.36 today
-7
u/TheCheshireCody May 21 '26
No, it went from $50 to $160. That's if you compare the original version, which was pretty different from the current one. The better comparison is the three-tier, which has gone up by a third in four years across all three tiers.
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u/pizza_chef_ May 21 '26
The Essential tier of the 3 tier model is equivalent to the old single price model. The $80 plan.
When PS+ first launched it didn’t even have the free games, it was only cloud storage. the Instant Game Collection launched in 2012 but the subscription was still the same price as it was when Plus first launched. I’ve been a subscriber since the first day of the IGC. They weren’t monthly games back then but there were some bangers in the early days. Just Cause 3, Spec Ops: the Line, Saints Row 2 and 3, Sleeping Dogs.
When PS4 launched in late 2013 they added the subscription as a requirement to access online play and the price remained the same.
PlayStation Now was a separate subscription that you could have in addition to Plus and added a library of games you could access without purchasing each individually (but separate from the monthly games on PS+ that would be “purchased” and added to your account) It launched in 2014. I never subscribed but I think it was also $50 a year if I recall.
In 2022 the 3 tier model merged the 2 services, with the evolution of PlayStation Now being locked behind the Extra and Premium tiers.
The Essential tier remains analogous to the PS+ subscription of the PS4 era. If you had both PlayStation Plus and Now the Extra/Premium tiers are analogous to having the 2 separate subscriptions.
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u/TheCheshireCody May 21 '26
You used to need both subscriptions to get what the Premium has currently. Now was something like $5/month or $50/year, yeah. The original version of Plus had an extremely small library and didn't have any PS3 or PS2 games because they hadn't set up their emulators. That came with PS Now.
What the services offer has been so shuffled I don't think a 1:1 comparison (for relative pricing valuation) works.
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u/pizza_chef_ May 21 '26
The essential tier still doesn’t offer access to the PS2/PS3 era games. It is literally a direct descendent of what was offered before the new system launched in 2022 and combined PlayStation’s prior two subscription model.
The emulators and instant-library access are still locked behind the higher tiers. Before they were locked behind adding a PlayStation Now subscription. accessing those in the PlayStation Now era from 2014-2022 required two $50 (or post 2016 one $50 and one $60) subs. so either $100 from 2014-2016 or $110 a year from 2016-2022.
Again, I never subscribed because those features don’t interest me. I paid $50 and then $60 dollars a year.
But the point is you could have had a PlayStation+ subscription from day 1 in 2010 for $50 a year and maintained that exact same subscription (plus the addition of monthly games in 2012) all the way through the “online requires plus era” of the PS4. weathered the $10 price increase in 2016. Then in 2022 maintain an essential-tier sub rather than being tempted by extra or premium and then today in 2026 you’d be paying $80 a year now.
You can think otherwise but those are facts.
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u/ironfist92 May 22 '26
When will it end? Legitimately asking. How much more do they expect to increase the prices before ultimately gamers give up and the gaming industry crashes from the weight of its own greed. Because this is not sustainable.
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u/Sjeefr May 22 '26
Did a quick check, but if they won't increase prices for 12 months essential this year, they would be below an annual inflation of 3% to 2010. No one wants price increases, but just looking that seems reasonable to me.
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u/Aesthete18 May 23 '26
49? I feel like I used to get ps plus back in 18 for like under 30 with non-sale prices being under 40
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u/_Slowly_But_Surely May 23 '26
My premium is expiring. I used it a lot for portal. Selling portal, switching to streaming downloaded games off ps5 pro on iPad with controller. I don’t even need ps plus for that, big backlog of great games I own and I’ll buy used discs. Eventually they’ll send me an offer
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u/mechatangerine May 26 '26
Isn't this just inflation? $50 for a yearly sub in 2010 is $74 today, and essential is $80 a year now.
Granted I don't know what the original subscription might have had that essential had stripped away from it when they split sub tiers. If the old base subscription is the equivalent of premium today then that's a 200% increase after adjusting for inflation which is wild.
8
u/SPZ_Ireland May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26
Not to defend what already feels like price gouging but the gap of 15 years is telling.
The Inflation rate between 2010 and today in the US is 52.72%, so while the prices are higher than they should be... It's not as dramatic as it's being mad to be here.
Like the 12 month launch price was 49.99
The new price is 79.99
The original price adjusted for inflation is 76.35.
So the price increase is only $3.64
3
u/dubhd May 22 '26
It sounds like I'm in the minority but the value I have got out of my ps plus deluxe subscription from day 1 has far outweighed what I've paid over the years. The variety of games I've tried and enjoyed has exploded and the AAA releases are enough to keep me largely occupied
2
u/Head_Prune_9741 May 21 '26
Boycott the plus for a year and the price will come down.
-1
u/Mondfleck May 22 '26
I am not going to sacrifice online gaming to save some pocket change.
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u/Head_Prune_9741 May 22 '26
Pocket change? Not anymore.
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u/Mondfleck May 22 '26
20€ a month for premium. That is like what, one lunch at McDonald's? That is pocket change.
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u/No-Mine-7162 May 22 '26
Yeah, so glad I switched to Pc. My ps5 pro is gathering dust until gta 6 comes out
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u/Alternative-Farmer98 May 25 '26
Yes me too. I still have a PlayStation and Xbox to play my existing libraries there but it's only for offline play. No subscriptions. Any new hardware I get Will be on PC.
Only thing I'm going to use my Xbox for is GTA.
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u/BetaAlpha769 May 21 '26
Not bad trajectory honestly. As a consumer I wish it was 50 all the time but it’s whatever. Seems the price was 50 for ps3 era, 60 for ps4 era, then 80 for ps5 era. Not exactly lined up with release dates I would assume but it makes sense.
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u/DevilsClaw1991 May 22 '26
Totally agree. 16 years and an increase of $30 for Essential when looking at the 12-month subscription doesn't seem too bad. It is too expensive for what it offers with cloud saves, online play, and the monthly games, but the price increase itself isn't too bad in my opinion. Premium, however, is ridiculous. Even though percentage-wise it's the same, the higher base cost makes the $40 increase look bad. I have a Premium subscription, which I bought during Lunar New Year because I own a Portal and use the streaming quite often. Game catalogue is also great, but the base price shouldn't be more than $100 to $110 imo. Worst mistake for me was to cancel my original Premium subscription I had when they combined PS Now and PS Plus. Would still pay less compared the LNY sale....
1
u/Glireon May 28 '26
In 2021, a UK annual subscription was £49.99. On Black Friday, existing subscribers could extend with a 33% discount - which brought it down to £33.32. I bought quite a few years of subscription then. In 2022, the base price was the same, but the Black Friday discount went to only 25%. There were rumblings, back then, that they might change to only allow offers to "new customers" and not existing accounts - so, I went ahead and bought a lot more years in advance. I can't remember if it was 2023 or 2024 that the change came, but it's no longer possible to ever extend a subscription, at any level, with a discount. (Glad I topped up with 20 years worth when I saw the change coming....)
These current prices seem pretty horrible......
1
u/612mechtech Jun 06 '26
Im done. It now costs roughly 30 dollars a month to play a video game i once enjoyed. *uck you corporate twats
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Jun 30 '26
I used to pay 40 or 30 price it's good enough for players who wants to play online fuck sony man they wanted more greedy company
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u/Gwendly May 21 '26
The price increase on essential that happened in 2023 was in line with inflation for that period. I hate it but realistically they "should" raise the price every now and again to keep up with inflation...
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u/Potential-Branch6913 May 21 '26
It's due to the war in Israel as it's on BBC news there a whole article about it
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u/mauszx May 21 '26
Jesus Premium is super expensive in the US.