Is PlayStation Plus US Better Than EU?

Were you expecting some PlayStation Plus discounts today as part of the weekly Store update? You’re not the only one. Lighting up the comments section of the Store post over at the official blog today, Plusites across the continent are asking: where are my deals?

Sony’s Mike Krebby has responded, elucidating the masses with how things will work in terms of Plus content going forwrd – at least in Europe. And this is where things get interesting.

In the EU, PlayStation Plus updates will be made known at the start of each month. As we already received our July update, that’s it until (we think) the 4th of August, which is the first Wednesday of that month. The source of the confusion is because things are panning out a little different across the pond, with a subsequent PlayStation Plus update going live after the initial release in the US region.

In a series of comments, Mike explains:

All Plus content is made available at the start of the month. The US content is not extra, it was stuff that was always part of their month one offering, but they didn’t announce it until this week.

We’ve decided to make our Plus content all available at the start of the month, I believe the US may release their content gradually over the month, though I could be wrong. I believe they’ve just split their month one offering over the course of the month, whereas we released it all in one go last week.

I don’t believe they will be offering weekly content for forthcoming months, I think it was just for July (don’t hold me to this though).

Commenting on another commenter’s unhappiness at the extent of the discounting going on over at the US Store compared to what we’re seeing in Europe, Mike responds:

To be honest I am surprised they have made that much content available at a discount. It’s not my place to really comment any further until I know for certain what’s happening, but I’ve passed this information on internally.

There you have it. It looks like PlayStation Plus across the regions is going to be tailored specifically per location, not just with respect to the amount of money-saving offers, but perhaps also in terms of how regular new content will appear.

Source: Official EU PlayStation blog

41 Comments

  1. They need a more unified PSN Plus so people from other areas don’t feel cheated.

    • Or unified Playstation Store?

      • That’s would be pretty difficult given that they can’t seem to get a unified EU Store. If you look at other countries (Germany etc.), it’s like a pick’n’mix of other EU Store content since they’re missing so much.

      • its all a farce if you ask me, just make one store! Have a language selection on boot, then allow users to show/hide games that have languages they cant understand. Release content world wide in one go, use USD as the currency, and convert into the native currency of the user with the exchange rate of that day.

        Problem solved.

      • @Bajere. The problem is coding for different languages, America and Canada are easy… English, and French.
        Europe is much harder with a huge amount of different languages. They have to be translated correctly otherwise you might insult someones mother!

      • @ theDAZBOMEGATRON –

        Yea, i thought of that, so thats what i meant for the show/hide option. If people in, say Italy, want to play a game that has not been translated, they can ‘show’ all games. but if they didn’t understand English/Spanish/German, then they could ‘hide’ all non Italian translated games.

        This means that everyone gets to play, instead of holding games and demos back just because some people wont understand them. ie; If (for some reason) a GT5 demo was in German only, i would be pissed that i couldn’t download it just because the EU store didn’t have all the translations. I don’t speak German, but i would still download it to play. As it stands, if a game isn’t in all the main languages when it arrives at Sony Europe, then we dont get it, or it gets so delayed the full game is out.

        Just post it all up on the store, and allow us to download it. Put a disclaimer on the download page stating about the language options this download has, and Sony/Dev’s wont be held responsible for offense caused with non translated scenes ect ect blah blah blah. Then everyones happy :)

      • Thats actually a good idea and it gives EVERYONE the opportunity to play despite the language barriers. But discounting the large number of Chinese people, English is still the most dominant language on the planet.

      • Only in our dreams mate. A common EU store would be enough for me. Currently I don’t have access to the Store and it sucks.

    • same goes for xbox live
      the usa get more stuff than us.
      bas***ds

  2. Hey, we’re left out again! ….

  3. What else do you expect? we are in the UK/EU afterall … the least important country where games are concerned

    • Dude, don’t let the Aussies hear you saying that

  4. So we either get a months content all at once… or you’re made to wait to get it in bits and bobs over the course of the months.

    I think it is us who have the better deal – as we get a whole month to play stuff before new stuff is released.

    The US has historically always had (far) better discounts than the EU region, we’ve just forgotten thanks to the work of Mike, Ross & team in the past few months

    • Except they get far more content than we do. They have a massive list of discounts. We have about 4.

      • i always get my demos off the US store, and UK store dosen’t even have them?!?!

    • europe gets a smaller choice, but longer to play them before new stuff comes out.
      you have your opinion and you’re entitled to it, but i believe that once again, europe gets the short straw.

  5. I was really shocked at how much discounted items SCEA put out vs SCEE. It really looks like we’re getting the short stick again.

  6. US have got loads more stuff in the store as well.

  7. It’s about right for Sony, one hand doesn’t know what the other is doing. You’d think they’d figured out how email works by now.
    But I’d like to see exactly what content the US has Vs EU.

    • Qore: Free. Normaly $2.99
      Fieldrunners: Free.
      Super Stardust: $4.99 normaly $9.99
      Super Stardust HD Team addon: $2.50 from $4.99
      Super Stardust HD Solo: $2.40 from $4.99
      MAG Raven Avatar: Free. From $0.50
      MAG SVER Avatar: Free.
      MAG Valor Avatar: Free.
      King Zumo Theme: Free. Was $1.49
      inFAMOUS Game Trial: Free
      inFAMOUS full game: $29.99
      Rally Cross PS1 Classic: Free. Was $5.99
      Age of Zombies: Free. Was $4.99
      Collision Theme: Free
      Fat Princess Fat Roles Exapansion: $3.99 was $4.99
      Fat Princess Pink Avatar: Free
      Fat Princess Blue Avatar: Free
      Wipeout HD: Free. Was $19.99

      Midway Collection:
      Gauntlet, Mortal Kombat II, Rampage, Rampart All PS1 Classics, All @ $2.50 was $4.99

      TikGames Collection:
      Cuboid: $7.99 Was $9.99
      3x Cuboid expansion packs: Free. Were: $2.99, $3.99 $4.99
      Hamsterball: $3.99 was $4.99
      Interpol The Trail of DR Chaos: $7.99 was $9.99
      Magic Orbz: $7.99 was $9.99 3x Booster Pack: Free. Was $2.99
      Mahjong Tales: $7.99 was $9.99 1x Booster pack: Free. Was $4.99
      Smash Cars: $7.99 was $9.99 Booster Pack: Free. Was $2.99
      Wakeboarding HD $11.99 was $15.99

      And thats everything.

      Cuboid

      • And they have more to come each week?
        I’d move to America but we all know Americans are stupid right?

      • … Which just means that we’d seem smarter :D

      • But wouldn’t I be dumbed down by proxy?
        In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king.
        In the land of the dumb, the man who finished school is a rocket scientist.

      • Could just spend all the money you’d usually spend on US PSN cards and then buy it from there. That’s how I got Spyro.

    • **Normally**
      Whoops, not once but twice.

    • Wipeout HD: Free. Was £13.99
      Gravity Crash: £5.03 Was £6.29
      Destruction Derby: Free. Was £3.99
      Fieldrunners: Free. Was £3.99 (and worth every penny)
      Age of zombies: Free. Was £3.99
      Killzone Steel and Titanium: Free. Was £4.79
      LBP God Of War: £1.20 was £2.39
      LBP LocoRoco: £1.20 was £2.39
      Fat Princess Fat Roles EP: £3.19 was £3.99
      Savage Moon Full Game: £6.29 (Was this cheaper when it was released)?
      Shatter Trial: Free. Full game: £4.79
      Game is Just the Start Dynamic Theme: Free
      LBP Dynamic Theme: free
      Fat Princess Avatar Pink: Free
      Fat Princess Avatar Blue: Free

      I’ll let someone else do the math for savings

  8. PSN as a whole is better in the US than anywhere else, I don’t see why they have regions on PSN anyway why is it not a global thing like iTunes. This is the area that really let’s Sony down for me!

    • iTunes is exactly the same as PSN.

  9. I was actually giving consideration to taking otu a US PS+ subscription today instead of an EU one, in no significant part due to the fact FirstPlay is shit and Qore which I enjoy comes free with the subscription.

    Didn’t know about the Cuboid packs but I finished the game so the packs would be a nice freebie too.

    • But you would not be able to use the discounts this way. Only free stuff. Unless you have a credit card from US.

      • I can use a game card surely, the same way I’d subscribe in the first place?

  10. I had to lol at this. Seems the Americans see it the other way. Although they’re getting more content it’s not as good as what we get, and the savings aren’t as good either. Specifically remember some comment on US blog comparing Super Stardust, we get complete for 3 quid-ish, they get discounts on the 3 downloads. Though I think that was on offer, not +

    • Hehehe, the grass is always greener right? They get more deals, we get better deals, everyone feels screwed…

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