Earlier this week, Sony warned that it was planning to soon raise the price of its basic PlayStation Plus Essential subscription by a few bucks. People weren’t happy about it. Now, the price changes are live, and it turns out that all tiers of PlayStation Plus are getting price bumps, something Sony didn’t really explain in its previous announcement. As you can expect, even more people are unhappy about this.
On May 21, PS Plus price changes went live for new customers and returning subscribers in certain parts of the world, including the United States. We knew PS Plus Essential, Sony’s most basic offering that provides a few free games a month and online multiplayer access, was getting a price increase from $10 a month to $11 a month, and that the three-month option was going up from $25 to $27. What Sony didn’t properly explain was that PS Plus Extra and Premium were set to get small price increases on Thursday, too.
Starting today, here are the new PS Plus Prices (courtesy Wario64) for all tiers compared to their old prices:
1-Month:
-Premium $19.99 (from $17.99)
-Extra $16.99 (from $14.99)
-Essential $10.99 (from $9.99)3-Months:
-Premium $54.99 (from $49.99)
-Extra $43.99 (from $39.99)
-Essential $27.99 (from $24.99)
As already confirmed by Sony, the price increase doesn’t apply to existing customers (except in India and Turkey), and it hasn’t increased the price of PS Plus if you buy the annual option.
When Sony announced the price increase on Monday, it only shared the new prices for the Essential tier. It did, seemingly, hint at or imply that there would be other price increases with the line “prices will start at…” but honestly, it’s pretty crappy of Sony to obfuscate the fact that all tiers were going up. And why? People were going to find out soon enough and be just as mad. And keep in mind that to play games online on a PS5 or PS4, you have to pay for PS Plus. (Free-to-play games like Fortnite are exempt from this rule, however.) So for many, PS Plus isn’t an option, but, well, essential.