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.
grimm
It’s not good in my opinion. The thing I hate the most about it is the fact that when you stop subscribing you lose a lot of the content. I want to be able to plug my console in in 10 years time and play the stuff, even if for nostalgia purposes only.
My other gripes are that I don’t want to put off buying stuff just because it might appear on ps+ in a couple of months. I want to be able to choose what and when I buy it. Also most of the stuff on ps+ I would never have been tempted to buy anyway. I don’t have enough time to play all the AAA titles I buy hard copies of, nevermind all the crappy minis that you’d get for free.
teflon
I think I totted up the total of what I’d got a few months back, and I playing LBP1 from the HDD a fair bit, Fieldrunners and Age of Zombies wasted plenty time on the train, the MS:PR DLC sparked me into playing that some more and getting the Platinum, S&M Season 3 I already owned but it was nice to get, VectorTD was more time on the trains, as was Aero Racer, Critter Crunch and Cuboid could both do with some more play time from me, but they’re both brilliant, and now most recently, getting Shatter is great.
So, totting that all up, that’s just pushing me past £40 a moment (half for Critter Crunch and Cuboid). So half way through and it’s happily paid for itself, and helped me get more worth out of other things. This is before taking betas, discounts etc. etc. into account.
For me, I think it’s a good solid service, but it obviously won’t be for everyone.
BigCheese
It is true, you do get an amazing amount of content for an incredibly small price, and all the games are solid titles. But, though they are solid, there isn’t a single game on there I’d actually play for more then half an hour and all the DLC either have, or I no longer have the game for, except Fallout 3, but just that isn’t worth signing up for. It’s good value for money if you like the actual content
Root Ginger
I think it’s worth the money for the auto download feature alone. For me, anything else is bonus.
Pete_UK
The Minis, lets face it, are niche at the best of times; I’ve downloaded all of the free content from my PS+ subscription, but in terms of actual entertainment I’ve completed the first Sam and Max episode, and spent about 20 minutes cumulatively on all the minis released since the start. They’ve taken a while to find their feet with the service, but it’s starting to improve – a lack of direction at the start though (or rather, the choice of two: core / casual) almost killed it before it got out of the stalls.
There’s still room for improvement though; how about voucher codes for those who haven’t bought anything on discount from the month previous?
Pete_UK
The anti-censor strikes again…
scavenga
bah
gideon1451
Multiplayer fun in bed? Ey up.
hazelam
there is a lot of great content there, but it’s disappointing that nowhere in the article is it mentioned that you do not own any of that content.
sure it may still be a great deal, but when you remember that if you stop paying for any reason all that value is gone, at least until you start paying again, then you have to think more carefully than just, is the content worth more than the price of a psn plus sub?
i have to say either forgetting that fact or just ignoring it, kind of lessens the validity of conclusions drawn in the article for me.
i mean, where is the counter point that you also have to factor in the added cost of a continuing subscription to retain access to that content.
yes, i know, you get more content the longer you subscribe and that weighs in on the plus side, but then that’s even more pressure to keep subscribing as you have ever more content tied up in that subscription, you know, it actually seems kind of insidious when i write it down like that. :o
Tuffcub
Yes it does. Try writing it this way – It’s £3.30 a month. A pint. Less than a Big Mac meal. Two issues of heat magazine. Half a movie at the cinema (or a bag of cinema popcorn). 6 Mars bars. Ten cigggies. Just under half an issue of OPSM. 3/4 of one blu ray rental from Blockbuster. three and bit scented candles from 99p stores. The Times Newspaper on one Sunday and one Friday (but not the rest of the week). A ready meal from Sainsburys.
£3.30 gets you sod all these days.
leon
I have had PS+ from day one as well and have found it well worth the money, and I will be renewing my 1 year subscription
E8_BALL_
Whilst lazing around in bed having some multiplayer fun
my favourite kind