PlayStation Plus' New Tiers - 6 Month Later
Yesterday marked the 6 month anniversary of the PlayStation plus tiers update in Japan, and it got me thinking about doing a quick video about how it’s been going.
I myself was already a subscriber to PS Plus and PS Now so I’ve been automatically subscribed to the new premium tier since day one. I’ve always taken advantage of PS Plus over the years and have amassed an insanely large collection of nearly 600 games. I also was a big fan of PS Now. I've tried streaming PS3 games a few times and it was totally fine for me, but it was a really exceptional service when they started allowing game downloads.
Anyways, moving on to the new relaunch of the service back in June, basically PS Plus as we knew it stayed the same as the essential tier, whereas PS Now was moved on top of it and split up into 2 more expensive tiers. The extra tier gives access to what was the PS Now downloadable catalog, while the premium tier allows for cloud streaming of the not-downloadable games, and boasts additional access to retro titles and game trials.
However, if you read the comments on PS Blog over the last few months, while there has been a lot of positive reception, the premium tier sounds like it’s been VERY disappointing for most players especially for those interested in the retro games catalog. The PS2 games made available so far were already purchasable games or were already included in PS Now, and only 3 PSP games have been added to the service since launch. In October the ‘classics’ catalog was basically a bunch of Yakuza PS4 games, debatable classics but definitely not retro releases. And in that same month, GTA Vice City Definitive Edition was part of the Extra catalog, despite being way more of a retro game so that really didn’t make much sense.
Then in November they added several Ratchet and Clank games, but they are only available in PS3 cloud streaming form. So for a lot of users they basically got no retro games that month because streaming does not work great for a lot of people. It's really sad because Ratchet & Clank is an active first party series celebrating its 20th anniversary. So these sorts of games should be the top priority to bring forward modern systems.
Speaking of active first party series, in the wake of God of War Ragnarok I also wanted to try playing the original God of War trilogy recently to get a better grasp of the overall series since I had never actually played them, but turns out none of them are available on PS4 or PS5. For some reason only GOW3 was brought forward in 2015. And the first 2 games and the PSP entries aren't even scary PS3 cell-processor games so there's really no reason why they are not ported over as PS2 classics and PSP classics, let alone remasters. I think it’s really silly that I can’t play God of War, PlayStation's flagship franchise from beginning to end on their currently supported systems of choice. There shouldn't be any licensing red tape for these sorts of actual classics not to be on the service! The classic catalog for Premium users has just continuously felt like a LOT of squandered opportunities so far.
Going back to the Ratchet and Clank games, I think it’s worth mentioning that just over a year ago Sony wanted to shut down the PS3 store, but here they are, still relying on the system they wanted to leave behind. In some ways I wish they did kill the PS3 and Vita stores because they might have been doing more to bring the unavailable catalog forward at this point. Oh and of course there's no Vita games coming to PS Plus because Sony likes to pretend it doesn't exist even though there's an abandoned Uncharted game just sitting there that most people haven't played that they could just re-release for PS5 players if they really cared to.
On the 1st we got new rumors about December's classic titles, and apparently they will be adding SW Battlefront 2 as a retro title, but it’s the PSP version! While it’s said to be a great game, the PS2 battlefront 2 is a legendary game and would easily be a better choice. But from what I’ve read about this decision is that apparently Sony does not have a great PS2 emulator, which has definitely been true on PS4 in my experience. I recently played all the Jak games on PS4 pro and they run really terribly.
Guess what I’m saying is that it seems like the Extra tier is actually the better tier because the downloadable modern games Sony’s been adding to the service at that level are just plain better than whats been added to the Premium tier so far. So if you haven’t already subscribed to a higher tier of PS Plus, you can probably skip out on Premium.
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https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2021/03/sony_confirms_ps3_ps_vita_psp_store_closures_downloads_will_be_retained
https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2021/04/sony_backtracks_ps3_ps_vita_online_store_closures
https://blog.playstation.com/2022/07/13/playstation-plus-game-catalog-lineup-for-july-stray-final-fantasy-vii-remake-intergrade-marvels-avengers/
https://blog.playstation.com/2022/10/12/playstation-plus-game-catalog-lineup-for-october-grand-theft-auto-vice-city-the-definitive-edition-dragon-quest-xi-s-echoes-of-an-elusive-age/
https://blog.playstation.com/2022/11/09/playstation-plus-game-catalog-lineup-for-november-skyrim-rainbow-six-siege-kingdom-hearts-iii-and-more/
https://blog.playstation.com/category/ps-plus/page/2/
https://blog.playstation.com/2021/04/19/playstation-store-on-ps3-and-ps-vita-will-continue-operations/
https://blog.playstation.com/2022/05/23/your-guide-to-the-all-new-playstation-plus/
https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2022/12/ps-plus-premium-likely-getting-star-wars-battlefront-ii-from-psp