Welcome to an understanding of PlayStation Plus (PS Plus). There is some confusion as what it is and what it offers. For starters this is not a game streaming service. PlayStation Now is Sony’s offering of game streaming and is separate from PS Plus (PS Now review here).
Price
Now that it’s been sorted that PS Plus is not a streaming service, keep in mind that it is a subscription service with recurring fees. As of today, the pricing is (in CAD):
| $ CAD | $ USD | |
| Cost every month | 12.99 | 9.99 |
| Cost every 3 months | 34.99 | 24.99 |
| Cost every year | 79.99 | 59.99 |
The service is much cheaper on a year plan vs the single month plan. Here’s a tip, look for sales! It’s quite often that Sony will put the service up for sale during winter holidays. 3rd-party vendors will also sell PS Plus gift cards at a discount including online digital keys for the service. I got 1 year for $37.89 (CAD) through a 3rd-party vendor while on sale.
Let’s dive into what the service offers. There’s a bunch so to avoid wasting any of your time, I created a simple list, and you can decide which services you want to read about.
Cloud game saves
Typically, when you save game progress, it saves to your local console storage. With PS Plus, you can save your game progress and trophies in the cloud. Sony includes 100GB of cloud storage for your game saves. This is handy in case you’re moving from PS4 to PS5 or if in a rare chance your console gets corrupted and needs a factor reset to fix. Saving your game progress to an external drive is possible but usually your trophies and accomplishments won’t carry over, they’ll only save on PS Plus cloud option.
Online multi-player
Playing multiplayer with another person locally on your console is no problem and completely free but to play most games online requires a PS Plus subscription. This includes games from top series such as Call of Duty, FIFA, NBA 2K and more.
There are some exceptions to this though. Games such as Fortnite and Apex Legends do not require PS Plus to play online multi-player, it’s free for those games.
Share Play
This will allow you to play multi-player and co-op games with a friend. You can also hand control of a game you’re playing to a friend, even if they don’t own the game.
Free Games
This is one of the most appealing things about this service. There are two ways to get “free” games (none of these are technically free since they require an active PS Plus subscription). The first is that you get access to the PS Plus Collection. This is a selection of games that are usually kept the same for a lengthy amount of time (The Last of Us Remastered has been there for many months).
The next set of free games is monthly rotated games. Each month 2-3 games are provided for free that you can redeem and play. If you redeem it, it’ll stay in your collection (it won’t disappear after the end of the month).
Keep in mind for any free game (regardless it’s the PS Plus Collection or monthly free game), that you can play them while your subscription is active. If your subscription runs out and you try to open one of the free games, it won’t work.
Discount on Games
When it comes to adding games to your library, it’s not just limited to free games. A significant number of titles will have discount pricing exclusive to PS Plus members. Of course, you shouldn’t expect these discounts on brand new titles.
Early Access & Pre-orders
If game developers allow it, they’ll provide game demos to try before you buy, early game access to trial betas and even early pre-orders. Now the last point about early pre-orders isn’t important for digital game releases since there is unlimited supply, so this isn’t such an important point.
Game Help
Ever get stuck at a certain puzzle on a level or a boss you can’t beat? Well, with game help (PS5 exclusive) if you press the PS button on your controller and looks for Game Help in your activity cards, you can view hints and solutions to beat that puzzle/boss.
This service is only available for a limited number of games, but that list is slowly growing.
Free Shipping (US Only)
If you live in the US and purchase hardware from the PlayStation store, then your items could qualify for free shipping. Let’s be honest, this isn’t important since many 3rd-party sellers in the US provide free shipping.
Exclusive Game Content
For select games, you can claim exclusive content. Such as skins for Fortnite
There you have it, a complete wrap on PS Plus service cost and features.
