Don't buy Sony's new yearly PS Plus Extra subscription, and here's why
Sony has priced its new PlayStation Plus subscription tiers in a way that dissuades gamers from buying PS Plus Extra yearly subs.
Sony recently combined PS Now with PS Plus and announced three new subscription tiers with different prices. One of these subscriptions isn't worth paying the annual rates for.
Sony's new PlayStation Plus tiers are strategically priced to push consumers towards the more expensive 12-month membership options. Sony is offering significant discounts for annual plans of its three new PS Plus tiers, which include Essential, Extra, and Premium (for example, paying month-to-month rates for a year's worth of the Essential membership is double the upfront cost of an annual subscription).
Based on our analysis, the Extra tier isn't worth buying for $100 a year due to the overwhelming added value from the yearly Premium tier option. The Extra tier is essentially the base PlayStation Plus with access to 400 downloadable PS4 and PS5 games.
The Premium tier is where the real value is. Premium is just $19 more expensive at $119 year and offers a total of 740 games across six generations of consoles and handhelds complete with game streaming on PS4, PS5, and PC, and game trials.
At this kind of comparative price-per-value you might as well just shell out a bit more and buy one year of Premium instead of an annual Extra membership.
Below we have a breakdown of PS Plus yearly price rates if paid by month-to-month, quarterly, or annually.
Essential
- $120 monthly (+200% more expensive than annual, +20% more expensive than quarterly)
- $100 quarterly (-17% cheaper than monthly, +67% more expensive than annual)
- $60 annually (-50% cheaper than monthly, -40% cheaper than quarterly)
Extra
- $180 monthly (80% more expensive than annual, 60% more expensive than quarterly)
- $160 quarterly (11% cheaper than monthly, 60% more expensive than annual)
- $100 annually (-44% cheaper than monthly, 37% cheaper than quarterly)
Premium
- $216 monthly (81% more expensive than annual, 8% more expensive than quarterly)
- $200 quarterly (7% cheaper than monthly, 68% more expensive than annual)
- $119 annually (44% cheaper than monthly, 40% cheaper than quarterly)