Whilst lazing around in bed having some multiplayer fun (split screen Blur is our game of choice) my beloved asked an interesting question, “Is PlayStation Plus good value for money?”
When Sony release details of an upcoming month’s PlayStation Plus games the complaints are immediate; “Very disappointing update (again),” “You’re giving us lame arcade puzzle games like Critter Crunch,” and “I’m so fed up with the content so far,” are just some of the comments on the EU PlayStation Blog. Are the complaints justified?
Below is a list of the gaming content from the first six months worth of PlayStation Plus. I have not counted avatars, special offers or themes. Any price in italic is an estimate (from my admittedly sketchy memory) as the games are no longer available on the PS Store. If you can confirm any of these prices then please mention it the comments section and I will update the table accordingly.
- July 2010
- LittleBigPlanet – £15.99
- WipeOut HD – £19.99
- Fieldrunners – £2.49
- Age Of Zombies – £0.99
- Destruction Derby – £3.99
- Killzone 2 DLC – £4.79
- August 2010
- Zen Pinball – £7.99
- Alien Zombie Death – £2.49
- Blast Off – £2.49
- Destruction Derby – £3.99
- Motorstorm: Pacific Rift DLC – £4.79
- September 2010
- Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playground – £19.99
- VectorTD – £2.49
- Echoes – £0.99
- Oddworld: Abe’s Odyssey – £3.99
- UFC Undisputed 2010 DLC – £3.19
- October 2010
- Streetfighter 2 HD Remix – £11.99
- Aeroracer – £2.49
- Yeti Sports – £2.49
- Kula World – £3.99
- Fallout 3 DLC – £39.95
- November 2010
- Critter Crunch – £7.99
- Bloons – £3.49
- Vempire – £1.49
- Syphon Filter – £3.99
- December 2010
- Cuboid – £7.99
- Bubble Trouble – £3.99
- Dracula: Undead Awakening – £3.99
- Oddworld: Abe’s Exodus – £3.99
- Sackboy’s Prehistoric Moves £4.99
If my beloved had subscribed to PlayStation Plus back in July, after the initial outlay of £20 (six months worth of PS+ subscription) he would have received £191.02 worth of content. I have calculated how much money I have personally saved and even though I already have some of the more pricey items such as the Fallout DLC I have saved £105.02. In terms of ‘value for money’ PlayStation Plus is a no-brainer, in just six months a single pound of gaming investment has an interest rate of 930%.
This leaves the question of quality, paying £20 for £180 worth of horse manure is not a good idea unless you have a very large garden. Let’s take a look at the Metacritic scores for each month’s main game.
- WipeOut HD – 87%
- LittleBigPlanet – 95%
- Zen Pinball – 80%
- Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playground – 81%
- Streetfighter 2 HD Remix – 87%
- Critter Crunch – 87%
- Cuboid – 79%
PlayStation Plus has provided exclusive beta to access to blockbuster titles such as Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood and Killzone 3, full game trials, automatic downloads, DLC, seven top Playstation titles with an average Metacritic rating of 85%, DLC, minis, themes, avatars, money-off offers and bonus items such as Sackboy’s Prehistoric Moves, all for the price of less than a Big Mac meal a month.
Is PlayStation Plus good value for money? Absolutely.
Note: As many of you have pointed out if you cancel your PS+ subscription then you can no longer access any content you many have downloaded. My apologies for not mentioning this, I did assume this was common knowledge. I still think that for the cost of a pint a month PS+ is excellent value.
RangeR
I don’t want games, I want services with my PS+.
Having said that, I have saved a fortune by signing up. Even the free LBP full game at launch was worth it as I no longer have to disk swap.
Winkle
Exactly. What I want from Playstation Plus is services, not games as I usually just buy only the stuff I’m interested in.
Cross gamer chat,(I have money on this never happening)
MKV support,
Cloud saves,
Allow us to play the game from the hard drive with the game disc in the drive.
Buy from the PSN through our phones and other devices and download automatically to our PS3 while we are out.
Play TV, let us set recordings from our mobile phones like Sky do already with Sky plus, so if we are in the pub and decide to stay there we can still record MOTD and watch it in a drunken state when we roll in.
bunimomike
The finest reply so far. Cloud saves (also allowing easy swap over to a new PS3 if you old one YLODs).
A service-centric PS+ (or even a handful of bolt-on services for a couple of quid a pop) would be superb. I would subscribe this instant.
stueeeee
**+1. Agree with the above 100%!
tonycawley
haha. terrible bet. you can never win. think it through.
Winkle
I have wanted this to come to the ps3 ( cross gamer chat ) for so long but I think Sony are running out of excuses. I honestly cannot see it ever coming now this fair into it’s life. Think maybe they cannot do it as it would have to be reverse engineered into the console and games. I hope I’m wrong.
Tanzil
has anyone played Siren Blood Curse? that game was a big deal until it just disappeared, it’s still on the store just never mentioned again.
Winkle
Worth getting. Classic horror game.
Charmed_Fanatic
I already knew it was value for money, it just doesnt have anything i want, i agree with disc based full games
Hoopiness
The question is completely subjective. It’s a complete waste of money if there are no games on that list that you’re interested in. That’s fine though, good for those that are interested. My gripe with PS+ is that you’ve no idea if it’ll turn out as value….you just need to sign-up and cross your fingers. No ta.
Tuffcub
Which is why I gave you the metacrtic scores. Just one is below 80%, so that’s seven quality games. I wasnt interested in Sam & Max, Zen or Criter Crunch but now ive got them I’ve spent many hours playing them. True, you never know what game you will get but whatever game it is, so far it has been a highly rated one. It’s a gamble – but maybe for £3.30 a month it’s a gamble worth taking, you might discover a lot of games you had no interest in turn out to be ones you spend hours playing.
Hoopiness
The problem with that is – having a family and not as much time as I might otherwise – I tend to know what I want to play by reading sites/magazines. I don’t want to go through 5 games selected for me, to find one I might end up liking.
Not when I’m paying a monthly fee for the privilege.
MadJunkBoy
PS+ doesn’t interest me at all… i dont buy content so much and the contents that has been free hasn’t got me interested(exept WipEout HD) so i’ll stick with my original subscribtion….
XisTG
I just got my plus subscription yesterday, let’s see what it does for me :)
dammspi
You forgot the free dlc of Fallout 3.. :)
Tuffcub
No i didn’t :) October, No.5
Yahavage
Playstation plush has been fantastic value for money for me – but then I didn’t buy anything beforehand. I do find it bad that the American store clearly gets a good deal more content that us EU peoples… but other than that, I can’t complain. I got my monies worth out of it in like the first 3 months. I think it’s great.
I can understand peoples frustration with it though… I guess everyone assumed it was going to bring PSN in line with xbox live. It’s turned out to be totally different. I wish people would stop complaining about it though, and provide more constructive comments on how other services can be improved. (For me more games supporting dual sign on, so I can use my psn name and get trophies for me, when playing co-op with my partner on something) That’s where I would like to see PSN improved the most. That and maybe streamline the invite system!
mcphatty
For me, it’s also a no. I started in November and thought the fee for the Killzone beta was worth it alone. The beta didn’t work, my PSN ID was not permitted on multiplayer due to it containing obscenities(!!?). Critter Crunch has kept me busy, but as I’m not interested in discounted stuff (only freebies) so I only get half the benefit. I won’t renew, I dont think it’s rubbish it’s just not right for me.
bigtechno
it’s not really xbox live is it
I buy a lot on PSN but only have 4 on the list
so until they start offering more I can’t see me giving them £40 a year for some sh1t minis
bunimomike
But there are downsides to XBL. My flat mate has Fable 3. She can’t 100% the game unless she has XBL Gold. From my perspective, I think that’s a horrific tactic on Microsoft’s part.
Yahavage
That’s a bit cheeky like!
MadJunkBoy
i agree with you bunimomike…
now she is forced to buy gold if she wants 100%…
Bad microsoft, Bad!!