{"id":172784,"date":"2022-12-30T19:35:09","date_gmt":"2022-12-30T19:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/playstation-plus-extra-and-premium-2022-games-was-it-a-good-deal\/"},"modified":"2022-12-30T19:35:09","modified_gmt":"2022-12-30T19:35:09","slug":"playstation-plus-extra-and-premium-2022-games-was-it-a-good-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/playstation-plus-extra-and-premium-2022-games-was-it-a-good-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium 2022 games: Was it a good deal?"},"content":{"rendered":"
PlayStation Plus Essential \u2014 what everyone used to call good ol’ PlayStation Plus \u2014 once again turned in an outstanding roster of free games for players who subscribe, and of course, players have to subscribe if they want multiplayer access.<\/p>\n
But at the subscription’s new Extra and Premium tiers of service, which launched in June, it is, candidly, hard to see where the value is. And I say this as a PlayStation Plus Premium subscriber, which is mainly because of the job I do. <\/p>\n
No one expects PlayStation Plus to mimic Xbox Game Pass; a copycat would be five years late to the party, anyway. But even the raw number of games available to PS Plus Extra and Premium members \u2014 most of which were inherited from the old PlayStation Now service \u2014 does little to make the PlayStation 4 and PS5’s add-on program competitive with Microsoft’s.<\/p>\n
By year’s end, PlayStation Plus Premium subscribers \u2014 the top level of service \u2014 had access to more than 1,000 games. (About 450 are PS4 and PS5 games, which form the core of the service and are available to PlayStation Plus Extra subscribers. The rest are streamable classics from the PlayStation 3 generation and earlier.) That’s a lot of games, more than double what Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers currently have access to (thanks to the inclusion of the EA Play library). <\/p>\n
But that’s also because Xbox Game Pass is curated, with games rotating out as new ones are added. PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium feels like Sony, with help from third-party publishers, is throwing things at the wall in hope something sticks. The problem is that everything does stick, making it next to impossible for the subscription to have a big name game that stands out, much less justifies the $14.99 (Extra) or $17.99 (Premium) every month. PlayStation Plus Essential is still $9.99 a month.<\/p>\n
Second is the fact Sony is on the record saying it won’t launch first-party games on PS Plus’ upper tiers of service. That’s Sony’s choice, for sure, but it’s not like it’s roping third party publishers into launching on Extra or Premium, either. Stray<\/em>a console exclusive \u2014 and an acclaimed one, to be sure \u2014 is the only title to launch on PS Plus Extra the same day as its general release. <\/p>\n It seems strange that Sony would be such a holdout, when day-and-date launches are perhaps the defining feature of Xbox Game Pass, and especially when PlayStation Plus Essential has had no problem with day-and-date launches over the years \u2014 spanning titles like Rocket League<\/em> <\/em>to smaller indie games exclusive to the platform. PS Plus Essential even had two day-and-date PlayStation launches in 2022.<\/p>\n The flood of games added to the two higher tiers of PS Plus \u2014 240 in all \u2014 isn’t really worth parsing out in the same way we analyze the smaller collection of PS Plus Essential games. Not when data points like age (dozens are years old, if not a dozen years old) and whether the titles are offered on other services (many have shown up on the old PS Plus over the years) are basically moot points anyway.<\/p>\n This analysis will focus instead on what PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium could do in 2023 to make for a more worthwhile subscription, rather than dwell on what Sony didn’t do in 2022.<\/p>\n