That change happened at E3, when the platform holder introduced the Instant Game Collection, and has continued to live up to that promise of high quality entertainment bundled in with the subscription cost, even after Ross McGrath, the service’s driving force in Europe, moved on.
Speaking to GI, John Koller, VP of PlayStation Home and Handheld Consoles over in the States, says that this momentum is likely to follow forward. “PlayStation Plus is fantastic,” he says, rather predictably. “This is going to be a significant part of our marketing efforts over the next 6, 12, 24 months. This is a big part of what we do.”
He talks about the value of the Instant Game Collection, and how it’s especially good for late adopters, those coming in six or seven years after the console launched. “This is going to be a very important part of what we do here over the next few months,” he adds. “You’ll see it at holiday. You’ll see it even beyond that with various integrations into our ecosystem.”
That last phrase is interesting – “various integrations into our ecosystem” – quite how they’re going to get Plus into other aspects of the brand is somewhat tempting to speculate on. Will Plus subscribers get even more for their money, or will non-Plussers start to lose out?
Customer satisfaction is apparently at the highest ever levels (at 97 percent) whilst the rate of people renewing is at 93 percent, according to the article. “The success of PS Plus is contributing in a big way to driving overall PSN sales,” said a spokesperson, “as our last quarter was the biggest in terms of transactional sales in PSN’s six-year history.”
Are you currently happy with Plus?
XisTG
I’m very happy with Plus. I even think they give too much stuff for what they charge. But ssshhh, let’s not tell’em that ;)
bunimomike
Same here, fella. It’s been wonderful. From early access (to the likes of Journey) to the free games that I still had on my list of titles to enjoy (ie. LBP2 and inFamous 2).
Finally, the auto-cloud save thingie is great.
Consider me a repeat offender… customer. :)
XisTG
I renewed until 2014. And I wasn’t drunk!
leon
I hear you on that, so many games i have stopped buying new ones until I finish my free ones
XisTG
just noticed that the article was written by “tsa staff”. Is that new?
Taylor Made
They do that with most articles written by Tsa stuff
XisTG
never noticed :p
gaffers101
I too am a very happy Plus subscriber, I’m very keen to see what’s going to happen to bring Vita owners onboard.
stormy
I don’t play enough (only because I don’t have the time) to warrant Plus so I really hope they don’t start penalising non-Plus users as mentioned in the article.
Forrest_01
Yeah, i’m in the same boat, but for different reasons. I tend to buy a lot of games, so when they appear on plus, it’s likely that i’ve got them or didn’t want them to begin with.
Then there is the whole HDD space issue, as i just don’t have the room to warrant all the downloads each month, as i just can’t finish games that quickly.
It is exceptional value – If you can use whats offered. For me, i would just be subscribing for the cloud, which isn’t really worth £40 imo.
Taylor Made
Now just do the right thing & bring to the vita with psp instant collection
tonycawley
But I don’t want to play PSP games on my Vita, I want to play Vita games on my Vita.
Taylor Made
But there isn’t that much to make a collection out of in the vita games plus there is some psp games I never got to play but for that resolution I wouldn’t but them like resistance retribution, the 3rd birthday & some other games
Mithrandir
Yes, very happy with Ps Plus indeed. It gives the average customer an enormous bang-for-your-buck, and more ‘free’ games than you can ever play. With at least three new games each month, and several brandnew Indie-games, there is bound to be something for you every month, to keep you occupied.
As for the “various integrations into our ecosystem”: Sony has already announced PS Plus will be extended to the Vita next month, at no extra cost. So yeah, PS Plus subscribers will indeed get even more value!
cc_star
I like PS+, I like the services like auto updates and stuff.
I’ve used the early access to games, betas etc too.
At the moment though I feel like I’m just adding stuff to my download list and never even downloading it, never mind playing it.
I’m keen to see what happens if Vita comes on board, I won’t be happy and will probably cancel if it dilutes the PS3 offering or the price goes up.
kjkg
I’m in the same boat, just feel like there is too much now but that isn’t a bad thing I guess.
Best thing that happened to me was I had to reformat the PS3 due to sticking issues with my game saves. Cleared my crap games off the list, so not redownloading. And saved most of my saves I wanted to keep due to the cloud saves.
Now my list looks a heck of a lot more manageable.
MadBoJangles
Yup I’m in the same boat as you two.
Got so much sitting unplayed it’s a bit silly…
Motalla
I like the online storage, trophy autosync and autoupdating. But the instant games collection is so so. The good game I already owned and what’s left I don’t consider essential, it just takes up space. My 500 GB disc has dropped below 60 GB of free space.
iAvernus
eeeerm… you do know you don’t have to download everything right?
CR8ZYH0RSE
How did they get the “97% customer satisfaction rate figures”? I’ve not seen any surveys relating to this and neither have my mates who have plus.
Don’t get me wrong I love ps plus and i’m looking forward to see what they do with the vita.
Forrest_01
“survey was conducted using a fairly sized test group of 3 people, all who never had plus before the survey”
:)
aycizzle
I’ve done quite a few surveys for playstation including a plus survey. They get sent to your email address.
kjkg
Yeh I think I did one too.
parryman
I am a late plusser, IGC was the tipping point. As a vita owner too I can only hope the vita+ is as good.
I would be happy with decent PS classics for free, as well as the usual goodies, for vita, on top of regular plus content for ps3.
Time will tell.