Sony, if the above survey is anything to go by, are toying with the idea of having multiple tiers of PlayStation Plus, or at least evaluating what they think the default deal should really feature and how it should be paid for.
Picked up by an IGN reader, the survey asks readers to choose between three different levels of Plus, each offering different perks and bonuses at different payment levels. The survey actually takes about fifteen minutes and tailors the choices depending on what you pick, which is why the Elite section is all marked as ‘no’ in the screengrab above.
The ‘Quality of Games’ choice made us giggle though.
In light of the survey going public, Sony say they “have nothing specific to announce at this time” and re-iterate that “PlayStation Plus continues to delight gamers with free games, huge discounts and exclusive gaming features that can’t be found on other platforms.”
job
option 3 please .
Youles
Same, since you can pick up old games fairly cheap it makes sense to get the most discount (75%) off of everything, including new games & DLC. The pre-selected stuff is often a bit pony. Also, it’s the cheapest option.
gazzagb
That “1 Year or Older” bit is what I hate about most about PS+, most of the content was released ages ago (ok not quite a year old as it says here).
I would prefer to see a compromise between options 2 and 3, I wouldn’t mind having an equal number of A and B games, as long as you still got a decent number of the decent PSN games and full blue-ray games.
COD Elite costs $49.99 per year, so if it was included in any of those packages it would instantly make it a great deal.
Oh, and I’d want it so you could keep all the stuff you buy, not just rent it. I don’t see the point in buying something when as soon as your sub runs out, you can’t actually have access to it anymore. Surely if you buy it, it’s yours.
Klart
“most of the content was released ages ago”
You can’t say that anymore with recent Plus games like Trine 2 (on release!), Shank 2, Awesomenauts (on release!) and The Simpsons Arcade (on release!) & I’m probably forgetting others.
colmshan1990
Stacking as well.
I think that was the first new release to do it.
gazzagb
Trine 2 was only free because SCEE messed up with releasing it more than 2 months late, but yeah, maybe you’re right about Awesomenauts and Shank 2 being decent games for release.
Forrest_01
You do keep all the stuff you buy – As in, if you drop some money on it (discounted or not), it’s yours for as long as you require.
The only things which you ‘rent’ (or that expire when your sub runs out) are those games that plussers get for free.
gazzagb
That would still mean the 70 games or however many games you got during the year would become useless when you’re sub ran out. You’d pretty much have a HDD full of content you couldn’t access, and I know that I wouldn’t of finished playing through all of them which would be even more frustrating!
Forrest_01
Oh yeah & that’s exactly why i am not a plusser – All this free content is all well & good, but where would i actually find the time to play it? The answer is, i simply wouldn’t.
I guess the way to look at it though is at least you haven’t paid for those games (apart from the sub, which entitles you to other stuff anyway).
bigbaldwolf
Doesn’t do jack for Vita gamers though. Until they sort that out I’m not interested
Bodachi
I would like to see PS+ extended to PS Vita users as well, maybe just to start off with discounts on Vita games.
gaffers101
I’m a very happy Plus subscriber, but I do agree, I’d love to see some Vita products on Plus too.
Forrest_01
I would personally think that they would release something similar but seperate for Vita – Trouble is with plus, it’s PS3 users that have signed up to it & not all of them will have Vita’s. So if they start including Vita stuff in updates, you will just have people moaning that they are clearly missing out on PS3 items due to the Vita stuff.
bigbaldwolf
I don’t see why that would be such an issue. When I preordered my Vita and got exclusive avatars they were for the PS3. I don’t have one so that stuff was useless to me so I don’t think Sony would mind doing that.
cc_star
If there was less PS3 stuff in favour of Vita gubbins I’d stop subscribing.
A Vita PS+ should be an add-on, not detract from the main event.
Forrest_01
Ah, thanks cc – That’s a perfect example of what i was saying. :)
@bigbadwolf – What you have to remember is that the userbase for Vita is nothing compared to the userbase for PS3. They would need to be seperate unless they want to annoy maybe 50-75% of plussers (completely made up percentages btw).
bigbaldwolf
I know there is a massive difference with the user base. All I was saying is that Sony gave Vita owners useless freebies. Yes they were free, but they were useless. They don’t think about stuff like that
Forrest_01
Bear in mind that the Vita is stil relatively new & therefore there may be something in the pipeline that hasn’t been announced as yet (although i have to admit its unlikely we wouldn’t have heard about it – Sony has more leaks than a sieve).
But i actually think a Vita+ subscription (i coined the term first Sony!) would be good for a lot of users that feel they aren’t getting the value out of the handheld. Of course, they would need some games & stuff on it to give away first i guess… ;)
I do think it would be a mistake to just lump stuff in with PS+ though – Do something dedicated so that the Vita users feel valued & PS+ users do not feel ripped off.
Youles
I’m not too fussed about the free games as part of PS+. If I like something I’ll buy it rather than wait for it to potentially come to PS+ when I’ll never actually own it. I’ve now got quite a few free games through PS+, (ones that I wouldn’t have bought), but know they expire at some point when I stop renewing. I’d like to be able to fully own them if I pay my subscription for a continual 12-month period, then perhaps I’d opt for the highest Tier. Otherwise I could see me opting for the cheapest option since I mainly like PS+ for the Save Cloud and background downloads. Any free games are just a bonus for me.
I’d also like an increase in the Save Cloud memory though!
Forrest_01
Personally, option 2 seems rubbish to me – Same price as option 1, but you seem to get a lot less. The only thing that is in the favour of option 2 is a larger discount as far as i can see.
SpikeyMikey23
I grew tired of PS+ in the first year. too many games, no time. Nothing that really grabbed my attention.
Look forward to seeing where they go with this to see if it will tempt me back
SpikeyMikey23
Just having a nose at other comments, I too would love to see Vita incorporated into PS+ or maybe a scaled down version for Vita. that would surely tempt me
KeRaSh
Vita content would probably be the only thing that could interest me in a PS+ subscription.
cc_star
Sometimes the problem with PS+ is the age of the games.
Fans would buy a game during its launch period
People who are curious will buy it when it’s later in a special offer
If you’ve done neither of those things then you’ve already made your mind up about not wanting it… So having 40 of these games given to you is no value whatsoever.
I subscribed in year 1 when LBP was free, stopped subscribing because most of the games I’d already bought or decided not to, then I resubscribed when I bought a £35 PSN Credit for only £25 & PS+ was reduced to £31.99 again.
I really don’t see the point in them throwing even an unlimited amount of games at you that you’ve already bought or decided not to. It’s got to include games in their launch window or not at all.
Aside from that the automatic update feature is cool, but considering auto-updates are free in other eco-systems I certainly don’t see the value in paying for that alone.
Youles
I totally agree – its frustrating when I buy something, and I pay for PS+, then the content goes to PS+ for free or much cheaper. The discounts need to be at release. People say not to buy straight away if you have PS+ but then I’m either missing out at release, for subscribing to PS+, or it typically doesn’t go to PS+.
hol
As a ps+ subscriber, the free games are a nice bonus & I’ve tried games that I wouldn’t have bothered with otherwise. As for cloud saves & auto patching, for me, this is worth the money alone for me.
stueeeee
I seem to remember a similar servey going about before playstation plus was announced that had these exact type of questions. Cross game chat was an option on it……
cc_star
Yes there was, they seem to have found out that cgc will never be possible thanks to a combination of the PS3 OS’s footprint in the memory and the actual limited amount of memory available in the PS3.
I think the version of PS+ that we have was actually a combination of the those mentioned in the survey, hopefully something similar happens here because it would be good to have a mixture of options
stueeeee
Yes I think having a couple of tailored plans would help ease some people’s complaints about it being value for money. Some people may jump at the chance of free cod elite, whereas I’d rather have extra games and services!