All tiers of PlayStation Plus are getting a steep price rise

Sony has announced that all three tiers of its PlayStation Plus online subscription service will receive substantial price hikes next week. This comes a few weeks after Microsoft similarly raised the prices of its Xbox Game Pass service.

In a blog post announcing next month’s new games which will be available for subscribers, including Saint’s Row (2022), Black Desert – Traveler Edition and Generation Zero, Sony also confirms the new prices for the three tiers of PlayStation Plus. As per the post, “We also wanted to let you know that starting September 6 we will be increasing the price for PlayStation Plus 12-month subscriptions globally across all benefit plans. This price adjustment will enable us to continue bringing high-quality games and value-added benefits to your PlayStation Plus subscription service. 

As per a message to Kotaku.com.au, Sony has confirmed the following as Australia’s new prices for PlayStation Plus 12-month subscription plans:

PS Plus Essential

Old Yearly Price: $AU79.95

New Yearly Price: $AU95.95

PS Plus Extra

Old Yearly Price: $AU134.95

New Yearly Price: $AU169.95

PS Plus Deluxe

Old Yearly Price: $AU154.95

New Yearly Price: $AU196.95

According to Sony, “the new prices for the 12-Month subscription will remain at a discounted rate when compared to purchasing the 1-Month or 3-Month subscriptions over a 12-month period. “

While these price increases are unfortunate, the writing has been on the wall for a while. Sony has reportedly had a fairly severe retention problem with the service, having lost around 2 million subscribers since its debut. Although the PlayStation Plus subscription isn’t quite as feature-rich as Microsoft’s Game Pass, it still has a sizeable library of games, as well as occasional day-one releases, which must cost Sony a pretty penny to maintain. Still, if Sony was already having trouble keeping subscribers on board during a cost-of-living crisis, hiking the price by such a large amount without announcing something to really add additional value, like releasing Spider-Man 2 day-one on the service or something, probably won’t help it in the long-run.

The price increases for PlayStation Plus will come into effect on September 6th 2023.