Sony has announced that PlayStation Plus has now reached 7.9 million subscribers across its consoles, which is a figure that seems lower than expected considering the amount of PlayStation consoles that have sold worldwide. The confirmation came from Sony CEO Kaz Hirai at an investors’ meeting earlier today. The breakdown of which consoles subscribers had was not made clear, but earlier this year it was announced that Plus subscriptions had increased by 90% after the release of the PS4.
Speaking of Plus Sony has been rather secretive of what is coming to the service in November. A few days ago a leak did appear for the North American Plus service, which we didn’t report on as we couldn’t verify the content or if that same content would appear in Europe. Now though we have at least three of November’s games confirmed for Europe, as Sony has sent out promotional emails detailing them. These games are The Binding Of Isaac: Rebirth on PS4, Frozen Synapes Prime for PS3, and The Hungry Horde for Vita. That is half of what is usually offered during a Plus update, and maybe Sony will be kind enough to share what else is coming soon.
Source: GamesIndustry/E-mailÂ
Sad Panda
The plus lineup has been going downhill rapidly and the quality of the PSN service itself being down all the time is worrying. I can see that number going down rather than up.
bunimomike
There’s no way it’ll go down but if the service doesn’t hold-up, perhaps it’ll affect console sales a bit. Last thing you want is a flaky network for your online gaming shenanigans. :-\
skibadee
I fine with the PS4 stuff but PS3 has gone down hill a bit.
Tomhlord
For PS3, sure, but isn’t that to be expected? Then, lets say in a years time, maybe they should stop doing PS3 games and give bigger PS4 games?
hazelam
if the rumoured content is true, it’s another meh month.
though i am looking forward to the console version of Isaac.
with less than a week to go, you’d think they would have announced it by now, they used to announce them a couple of weeks before for a while.
MadBoJangles
It’s been “meh” for the last few months in my opinion.
I only keep the sub going so I can play Destiny online.
Avenger
I wouldn’t be surprised if the other PS+ games were exactly what the other sites reported/rumoured. If so, and the IGC is winding down, it’s one less pros for buying a PS4 when/if I get round to buying a new gen console.
gazzagb
What’s IGC? Never heard of it before
Avenger
Instant Games Collection. It’s what PlayStation calls it, albeit without the acronym.
gazzagb
Oh, that just what they call the free games each month? Don’t have PS+ so don’t follow it that closely.
Avenger
Yeah, PS+ does offer several services aside from the most recognisable ones I suppose, so the free games each month were tagged as an Instant Games Collection feature on the PlayStation website.
On a side note I can’t help but laugh when some of the other comments mention the free games as being ‘given to’ to a subscriber. Does anyone not remember the service costs £39.99 and people buy it perhaps only for one or two features the service offers, like the IGC games.
On another side note, perhaps it’s best the IGC does wind down a bit. Perhaps then SCE can redirect the money into massively overhauling PSN to deliver on that PS4 multiplayer element. After all, many talk about Xbox Live being more stable for the £39.99 per year, but it never offer hundreds of pounds worth of games like the IGC did, not so long ago.
Pitcher-T
It’s must be so frustrating to be at Sony trying to deliver the AAA PS4 games that people seem to expect from the PSN+ service. There is surely no viable business model that can justify releasing games such as Killzone or Infamous for free on PS+ less than a year of release.
I very much would like to see more games like Outlast on PS+ but for big releases (Mass Effect, Borderlands etc) like we had on the PS3 side, I think we’re going to have to wait a while.
Avenger
It’s reasonable to expect no AAA PS4 games for the meanwhile, it’s still early days. This said, PS+ on the PS3 was delivering games that were less than 6 months old, but still, it’s early in the PS4 life cycle.
However, the Vita and PS3 line ups shouldn’t be a problem, even if it’s one retail release and one digital release, but I’m not sure it’s going to be that any more.
ron_mcphatty
I think it’s not just the age but also the proportion of available games they have to worry about. I’m happy to wait until year 3 before I’ll expect to see big year 1 titles like Knack, Infamous or Killzone in the IGC. I think it’ll be easier for Sony to get the AAA games on Plus when they’ve been eclipsed by numerous successors in their genre and simply don’t sell anymore.
ron_mcphatty
And you’re right about the Vita and PS3 games Avengerr, they’ve been great recently! I guess a lot of people are just not happy with the PS4 offerings, for whatever reason.
homerjnick
What’s the point in PS+ November releases? We won’t get to play them anyway with a borked PS Store and a borked PSN…
Nate
Personally I’m looking forward to this months update, as the Binding of Isaac looks great. I don’t see why people fear the IGC is winding down, it still offers superb value for money.
CR8ZYH0RSE
I’m not bothered about the games we get GIVEN for ps-plus if they’re good i’ll play them but i would like to see a more stable network/psn that’s not going down every other week.
Lyts1985
Considering the quality and scale of the games we used to receive, I think it’s perfectly safe to say it’s been winding down since the release of PS4. Not even the PS3 freebies have been worth getting excited about for some time. Knew it was gunna happen though – it had to, what with the service now being compulsory for those who play online…
They really spoilt those of us who have subscribed since day one, and they could only sustain that momentum for so long. It’s our fault really for not adjusting our expectations, but some kind of pre-warning would’ve been nice. I definitely have a much tougher job recommending Plus these days…
:-(
vjmwilliams
With all the AAA titles coming out this month it would make no sense whatsoever for Sony to put high profile games on ps+ and potentially harm sales of these new games. This goes for ps3 & ps4. It also allows them to include some of the older AAA games as part of the christmas or more likely the January sale without people complaining that we recently got it for ‘free’ with ps+. I certainly dont feel that the games we get are going downhill.
Eldaveo
Another meh month.Doubt I’ll bother renewing until things improve. Apart from Resogun and Outlast it has felt like a waste of £40 this year.