If you have read our Sony Conference round up, you will have seen that after months of speculation, PlayStation Plus was launched as the PS3’s premium online service.
We first dug out the PlayStation Plus branding in March, but yesterday was the first time it was all pulled together and revealed officially, and as promised, PlayStation Plus will sit on top of and not replace the current PlayStation Network service at the end of June.
But what about details? Well, the EU Blog has been rather kind and confirmed European dates: PlayStation Plus kicks off at the end of this month, on the 29th. So what’s PlayStation Plus all about?
Games.
PlayStation Plus members will be able to get their hands on at least four free games every single month, these will be at least one PSN game, two Minis and one PSOne Classic. In the US, the first month’s content includes the excellent Fieldrunners, Age of Zombies, the entirety of wipEout HD and a PSOne Classic.
Full Game Trials.
These aren’t your average demos, no, this is full unrestricted access to full PSN and Blu-ray games. You can download the full game, and play it any way you want just as if you owned it – for up to an hour – potentially saving a fortune in purchasing games you just don’t get on with.
All it requires is a download of the content and away you go, although it is not confirmed which games you will initially be able to try out.
Automatic Downloads.
PlayStation Plus members will be able to set a time on their PS3 for it to wake up and download any available firmware updates, patches and demos, as we’ve said in the past, meaning they’ll never have to wait again. You set the time and date for your PS3 to download a demo, for example, it will turn itself on and by the time you’re home from a hard day at work the process should be complete.
Discounts, Demos And Betas.
Members will be entitled to exclusive discounts for a whole range of games and content, get early access to demos (hopefully in-line with Live Gold subscribers) and exclusive early beta access. Members will also be entitled to a range of free and sometimes exclusive Avatars and dynamic themes.
If you’re wondering how much all these benefits are going to cost you then it’s €14.99 / £11.99 for 90 days and €49.99 / £39.99 for a whole year, and if you choose to sign up between 29th June and August 3rd then Sony are giving away a downloadable copy of LittleBigPlanet.
Consider me signed up.
eutiagopato
they said when our subscription is over, we loose those free games evey month. im wondering, if i have one acc with plus and downloaded those games, can i log in a diferent acc on the same ps3 and play them, even that acc not beeing PSN+?
Btw it does seem a nice deal if u ask me :)
cc_star
You keep all the free stuff you get except for the free games, which are only available to members. As soon as you stop being a member you lose your access to the games
PoorPaddy89
So the free PSN, minis, and PS1 games you get each month disappear if you cancel your subs? Seems a bit tight-fisted to me.
Bilbo_bobbins
whats the point of actually signing up then if you lose them after a year or 90 days? lol
Kevling
To make you want to STAY signed up, of course.
Origami Killer
can you stay signed up all the time if you keep using yearly subscription???
they will probably allow that, if you can update your subscription before it runs out.
cheekyMcB
PoorPaddy89 how on earth is it tight-fisted? You get 4 full games a month, that’s 48 games a year for £39.99…..the price of 1 new release blu-ray game. So what if you don’t get to keep them if you drop your subscription, you’ll probably have got your fun’s worth out of most of them anyway. Given it’s only £40 a year why would you stop your sub anyway? And that not even counting the other features the service is offering either.
Given the amount of stuff you’re getting and the fact the people who created it need to get their cut (it’s their livelihood after all)it will be amazing if Sony make any real profit on this. You have to pay for things in life, even “free” stuff costs money to make.
Bilbo_bobbins
if you lose the games, what are you actually getting for £40 a year, other than the use you had from them? Nothing other than a few dynamic themes and some early beta access. PLus patch updates, which you can download when you log on, hardly takes time. Not really worth it I think.
Origami Killer
yes, but what if you dont end yor subscription, £40 is not bank busting for a year compared to the most of you who have bought mw2 maps for a rip off. if i have them all for a year i will have had my moneys worth, i never buy psn games and free ones would be amazing, the only thing im worried about is the memory space. how many gb’s will lbp take? can i improve my hard drive space by connecting something via usb??? please soemone help, i have less than 16gb left
bajere
The only things id want out of this is the background downloading, and the ‘free’ games. Ill wait to see the caliber of games they give away after the 1st 3 months to see if its worth it. Giving crap away like diner dash or something wont do.
Dward
Origami Killer, just buy a bigger hard drive! Play.com lists compatible ones. Back-up to a memory stick, swap the drives, restore from memory stick. 1 hour job start to finish and it doesn’t invalidate your warranty. This is one of the best things about the PS3!
cc_star
Ever bought a duff retail game?
The one hour trial will be worth its weight in gold, then you’ve got the members benefits, whilst you’re a member.
In what world would you get members benefits of anything when you’re no longer a member
Its like these unlimited music download services, as soon as you stop subscribing your music has gone, kinda obvious really
Origami Killer
Thanks, its that easy?? need to get my self a new memory stick then as well ( i lost it) :(
Im gonna have no money left by the end of this year : move, psn plus, hard drive, memory syick, rdr and cod black ops
SpikeyMikey23
CC dont you have LBP already? it would be nice if they offered a selection of games for free if you sign up between those dates. Maybe a choice from some of the older platinum games or the whole range even
cc_star
Bundled it with my 80GB when I sold it, thought it’d help the auction along by having a couple of games thrown in.
Yes a choice would be great, but I assume there’s an awful lot of work in converting a disk based game to a download
YOURMUMANDME
I’m signed up on day one, not even for LBP.
I just don’t want to be like the poor kid at school that can’t go on the ’14 day cruise’ because his mum and dad are tight fisted and have better things to pay for than ’14 day cruises’ that cost £900 even though half was going to be raised by sponsored walks etc. …… *cries*
I remembered this as I was typing something else, that was a decade ago and it just flooded back to me ….. ;,(
PhilipJWitow
Whoa… are you.. alright?
Seems kinda like you should get some help for that…
YOURMUMANDME
I’ll be fine …… just leave me be. :(
matty
I was all up for this until all the info came out. They are just giving away stuff I wouldn’t buy anyway, not bought anything off the PSN since Battlefield 194erm.. The only thing that interests me is the access to betas and 1hour trails but what are the chances of them being games about to be released? I can’t see it. Shame really I will have to see how they go before jumping into this.
Flightx
yeah i’m still undecided about the free games and such but everything else is a winner for me
cam the man
It would be good to know what betas are in the pipeline (they must have some planned), and some of the games included in the ‘one hour trial’.
Just thought they may publish details of future stuff when the subscriptions start levellingoff.
cc_star
Any beta, I suppose
Medal of honour
LBP2
Killzone 3 multiplayer?
Juelz345
Apparently x-game chat has been confirmed by Sony (as per another site) so that has me sold. Up to 4 people in 1 chat and only 1 needs to be a subscriber.
LycanGav
My only problem is that they are asking us to sign up at release and as a reward are offering us content that they asked us to grab at release. They must know that alot of people will already have the likes of Wipeout and LBP, especially the type of loyal fans who will be willing to sign up for a service very much in it’s infancy. Something new would have gone a long way in my opinion.
tonycawley
The only thing on there worth shining up for is background downloading of patches, and that alone is not worth 40 quid a year.
FoxHoundGabe
Completely agree, that should acctually be free.
Apnomis
That’s how I’m feeling too, I guess it depends what else is added. I’m not a fan of Cross-Game Chat either. For me I would have liked some cloud based stuff like game save backups and a cloud-based web browser. Would have also liked a movie rental to be included in the monthly offers.
I just can’t work out how this makes Sony money though, giving away £200 worth of PSN stuff a year? Why not just add some actual features – like background patch downloading – and then they can rake it in like MS do?
If this replaces the fortnightly Special Offers on the store I may get it though…
Also since when did LBP become a digital game? How many more blu-ray games will get this treatment? And to get the 1 hour trial does that mean you need to buy the digital version of the game rather than the disc copy (which will be cheaper)?
Kevling
There’s nothing to stop you buying the disc version instead, but I would guess your saves / trophies won’t carry over, and you’ll have downloaded huge amounts of gigabytes for nothing…
The more I think about it, the more I see this as a way of kicking off PSP Go style digital downloads of full games, but with the “1 hour free” as sugar-coating to help us swallow it.
Mick939
Why offer a game everyone owns. Fucking hell
BrendanCalls
Seriously Sony. The after detais are just ruining what was such a good show. Mire or less everyone has owned a copy of LBP. Noone who wants it is going to get it PSN+ for this.
PSN+ is a no for me anyway. It feels a bit like a cop out, basically they’remaking you pay dor a 1 hour sales pitch with the demos thin. And then background downloading well that should be free anyway.
All wrong
hannes_truce
I’m most probably going to go for this, however I will be doing it 3 or so months down the line once sony have worked out all the glitches and problems.
Bilbo_bobbins
I will only do it for early beta access on stuff I think. Other than it’s a total waste of money IMO.