The PlayStation Plus game subscription service—which unlocks online play for PlayStation 5 and PS4 gamers and serves up free downloadable games each month—will jack up its prices for yearly plans starting on September 6, Sony announced in a blog post Wednesday.
PlayStation Plus currently offers three different subscription tiers: Essential, Extra, and Premium. Each tier allows players to choose whether they want to purchase a one-month, three-month, or yearly subscription, with discounts increasing when gamers commit to longer subscriptions.
Now, the yearlong subscriptions won’t feel like as much of a deal—but still will remain cheaper than staying on a one-month or three-month plan long-term.
Yearly subscriptions for PlayStation Plus currently cost $59.99 annually for Essential, $99.99 for Extra, and $119.99 for Premium. The new prices will be $79.99, $134.99, and $159.99 for Essential, Extra, and Premium, respectively.
This price increase means that Essential plans will cost 33% more, Extra plans will see a 35% price hike, and Premium plans will cost 33% more going forward. The post did not mention any price hikes for monthly or three-month subscriptions, so they will apparently remain unchanged until further notice.
Existing annual subscriptions purchased before September 6 will not be affected until they expire. That said, “upgrades, downgrades, or buying additional time” could trigger the new price increase to come into effect before the annual expiration date, according to the post.
Considering the fact that a monthly subscription of Essential, Extra, or Premium would still cost $119.88, $179.88, and $215.88 annually respectively, it’s still a better deal over the course of a full year to buy an annual subscription, even with the price hike.
In addition to enabling online play and serving up a few free games each month, PlayStation Plus subscriptions also grant players access to a wide variety of classic PlayStation, PS4, and PS5 games without having to purchase each game individually—similar to Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass.
Why is this happening? In the announcement post, Sony’s Adam Michel wrote that PlayStation decided to increase subscription costs so that it can “continue bringing high-quality games and value-added benefits to your PlayStation Plus subscription service.”
By comparison, Xbox offers a comparable subscription-based service that grants gamers access to a selection of titles. But Xbox Game Pass only offers players a monthly subscription option, with its PC subscription priced at $9.99 a month. Xbox Game Pass for Xbox consoles costs $10.99 a month, and its “Ultimate” tier with added features costs gamers $16.99 a month.
While Xbox Game Pass only offers monthly subscriptions, Microsoft also offers gamers the ability to get a latest-generation Xbox console as a part of a $24.99 or $34.99 monthly subscription when buyers lock in for 24 months.
This “All Access” offering also includes 24 months of Xbox Game Pass, and ultimately sets gamers back about $600 for the Xbox Series S hardware or $840 for the more powerful Xbox Series X hardware option.