July 30th Update: The content per month isn’t determined as day one content and is content that will be made available through the month.
If you have been paying attention to all of the news coming out of E3, you probably heard that we introduced a new subscription service called PlayStation Plus, which will be available on June 29.
PlayStation Plus is a service that lives on top of the current PlayStation Network. So, while users will continue to have free access to PlayStation Network’s unmatched and ever-growing suite of new and exclusive content, services, and community focused tools – just as they do today – PlayStation Plus subscribers will gain access to an exclusive set of features and content designed specifically for gamers.
When you subscribe to PlayStation Plus, you’ll get free games and DLC (pretty sweet), frequent discounts on PlayStation Store, early invitations to select betas of popular games, and free monthly episodes of Qore – our high-definition, interactive gaming lifestyle show. You’ll also enjoy new functionality such as Full Game Trial where you can “try before you buy” – play a Blu-ray or PSN game for up to one hour and then you can buy the game, download it and keep your progress and trophies. Another cool feature is Automatic Downloads that will push select demos, game related videos, patches and firmware updates to your PS3 so you don’t have to think about it. Total it up and you’ll get hundreds of dollars of value through the year with exclusive digital content from both our World Wide Studios Group and our publishing partners. And every month we’ll be adding new content and continually adding new features, making PlayStation Plus an incredible value, time saver and ticket to front-of-the-line access.
At launch, PlayStation Plus will offer subscribers the full PlayStation Network game, WipEout HD, full game trial of inFAMOUS, PSP minis and PS One Classics such as Fieldrunners, Age of Zombies and Rally Cross, as well as premium avatars, themes and DLC levels and map packs. Additionally, subscribers will always have access to their virtual library of free games for as long as they keep their PlayStation Plus subscription. In all, subscribers will get an unprecedented amount of value, access and convenience and, in the first month alone, will receive more than $50 worth of content.
PlayStation Plus will be available for a yearly fee of $49.99. We are also running a “limited time offer” giving subscribers 3 free bonus months for signing up for a yearly subscription – so those who
sign up now will get 15-months of PlayStation Plus. Consumers also have the option to subscribe for 3 months for $17.99.
You can sign up on the PlayStation Store or learn more about the exclusive features at us.playstation.com.
No cloud storage saving = me not signing up.
i was ready to scream in agony reading this…but hey! its cheaper than live gold! and that says alot. now just make sure this content is awesome
i already have a qore subscription and i dont want my games to be taken away if i dont sign up again, doesnt sound worth it to me.
People keep saying this is like renting content and sony is wrong for it, well sorry to burst your bubble but the content on ur ps3 u bought since day one is in the same boat… Because if you violate the terms of service it states that you lose your content anyway so this almost the same thing to a certain extent…
Europe playstation blog says there getting a free little big planet digital copy(PS3 version) if they sign up for a year. Do USA buyers also get the game ?
It’s the same price as a gold subscription on the xbox. 50 for a year. The three month option might be a different price, not sure.
Cross game chatting hasn’t been announced as being part of this…who knows if it will be. I hope not. It will be a poor move on their part of this ends up being true at some point.
Babacas! I want the PSN Brazil! I want to buy, spend money!!!
I just want to make sure I understand this correctly…
All the games you get free while having PS+, like the WipeOut HD, that comes out right when you purchase it.
Will you loose those “free” games/dlc if you discontinue your PS+ membership?
Hmmm, sounds interesting…I’m going to have to mull this one over.
Susan Panico or anyone else, there is something that bothers me about this upcoming service:
” Additionally, subscribers will always have access to their virtual library of free games for as long as they keep their PlayStation Plus subscription.”
It says we always have acces “As long as we keep our subscription” So hypothoetically, say I got like the 3 month/1yr plan, and I got like some DLC for Modern War 2, if I don’t renew, do I (We) lose EVERYTHING that we have gotten with that subscription?
Im not really confident in this service, but if I were to ‘try’, I guess il start with the 3 month service…….
Consider it bought!
12
I bought a Qore Subscription about 5 months ago.
Is there anyway that could carry over to the Playstation Plus?
Because 49.99 a YEAR is a great deal and I’m down to pay for it.
But again I paid for Qore already and would like to be paid back my money if possiable.
Wait on the EU blog they are getting LBP as the download and that is why I was considering this especially since I already have Wipeout HD. Why have a different free game?
Now reading that we only get Wipeout HD, a trial of a year old game, and no party chat I may skip this.
Make this better
I have wipeout HD.
I have inFAMOUS
I have Qore.
I probably wouldn’t care for pushed firmware updates or game updates. I like to be in control of things like that.
I probably wouldn’t care for cross game chat, and you can party chat and game launch in Home.
Aside from game content and psn stuff, what can I DO with psn+ that I can’t DO with psn as it is?
more info http://us.playstation.com/playstation-plus/
Nice i think i’ll try that but to make sure if i change my mind after one year and decide to not go for a second year will i lose all the games i got for free and their trophies or the games only?
Cloud storage and im sold!
i love you Sony
Dear Playstation,
have you looked at your PlayStation.Blog Share site lately and checked what is the most wanted features on PSN?????
Cross Game Voice Chat
+14993
Score
22,005
Votes
…and you are not adding it to the PSN Plus?????
WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH YOU????????????
Quore is included….IM SOLD!!!!!!!!!!!
what an amazing company !!!
Assuming I wanted this. Assuming I didn’t care about OtherOS…
Why would I want Sony to push automatic firmware updates?
“Oh dang, turns out that PS2 backwards compatibility is a SECURITY risk! Guess We’ll push an instant firmware update to all you nice paying customers.
“Oh yeah, PS2 games are now available for download starting at 20 bucks a pop… this has nothing to do with the aforementioned security risk. That is all, move along citizen, and consume.”
and psn-free is forever!!
psn-f (free)
psn+ (plus)
can live together true!
How will this work with multiple PS3s as well as multiple users?
I have 2 PS3s, I’m the primary user on both of them. One of them gets used by a sibling, one of them is in my office and is only used by me.
When I get my PS+ subscription, does it work for both PS3s? Can my sibling’s user access the games/content? Or is it only available to my user?
So when your subscription ends, you lose access to the free games. I can understand that- what about the games you bought for a discount through the service? I’m assuming you still get to keep those right?
People who are whining about losing their games if the don’t renew with the “but I bought it!” argument aren’t reading closely enough.
That stipulation will only apply to the FREE Games you get though subscribing to PS Plus. It’s similar to renting a game. If you want to “OWN IT” outside of PS Plus, you pay the standard price.
Other complaint I see a decent amount of: “Cross-game/party chat should be free!” Well, being that the primary competition isn’t offering it (or even online multiplayer) for free, it really makes sense. It’s the same price as the other system subscription service, but offers much more value. Once I can, I’ll buy joining in, most likely.
Ha, $50 a year for a rental service…I was actually going to get this until they said “until your subscription runs out”. Your essentially not getting any value out of this considering you dont get to keep anything. way to screw up yet again…Not to mention the absence of Cross Game Chat. I can manage my own downloads. This is why LIVE will always be the place to play online console games and i will play my PS3 games solo. Sony is too caught up in gimmicks like 3D and Move to care about making PSN better. Anyway, hope they rip enough people off with this service and use that revenue to implement actual services that people want. Apparently they dont read any of the ideas in the blog share…
Ya im still very confused by this, so is this just purely Ps3 owners? im now both a ps3/psp owner(recently owning a ps3) but in my opinion this doesnt look good in my opinion. i mean 50$ a year to “Borrow” content? i mean these free games,demo etc will be useless if i forget to pay for a month/year? Just please help me understand i dont want to pay 50$ forget to pay and not be able to play games i rightfully bought.
It sounds pretty good but I would like to see more features like XGC and the cloud save system. I mean cross game chat is something we’ve been waiting for since the Ps3 launched and while it’s not a make it or break it feature for me, it’s still a handy thing to have (mainly for setting up parties and switching games. All in all though this is a great start, The content is great, and i would much rather have an “on demand” style of free content rather than have facebook and pandora radio on my console (i can use those just fine on my laptop)
I am looking forward to enjoying the PlaystationPlus service. Finally Sony is moving toward a bigger and better Network while using appropriate avenues to get this done. I am also looking forward to the goodies that come with the service. I’m assuming that WipEout HD is FREE with a year’s subscription? Can’t beat that. What makes this movement even better, is that the standard Playstation Network service is not being affected as Sony promised at the launch of the Playstation 3. Free online network service, but a premium network service for an additional rate.
Upon reading everyone’s post, we have valid questions that needs some answers. They need to make a FAQ with answers to some of these questions if they want some of us to sign up for the service.
How are the games “free” if you don’t keep them. You get access to them during your subscription, but they are not free.
This meaning the Automatic games updates(Bug Fixes, patches and others), will stop to work to normal users? Because today I get the fixes automatically.
This is VERY IMPORTANT, Sony. Please answer this question. We deserve an answer before we sign up for this.
Is the available content going to constantly build on its foundations? In other words, in month 2, when the free game is something other than WipeOut HD and the trial is something other than inFamous, will those two games still be there, as part of the service? Will the service eventually just keep growing so that being a member will allow you access to everything that’s ever been available? Kind of like NetFlix Instant Streaming, where I can join now or I can join in a year and all the stuff that’s there now will basically be there then and I can enjoy it then. Will it be like that… a growing library of content?
I don’t expect that the free-to-keep stuff like themes & avatars would be available during any month other than its initial month. But all content that’s only available to current-subscribers should remain in the list of available content forever once it’s added to begin with. That way anybody who joins can get a nice experience from it.
Do you get the same exact content during any given month if you sign up just for that month as the people who have annual subscriptions will get during that month? Is any of that content that you guys mentioned just for annual subscribers, or for anyone that even subscribes for the first month only?
I don’t think this service will be very valuable if every month you wipe clean the content that’s available. It has to be growing from a foundation, so there’s a growing variety of stuff you have access to as your a member.
KEY QUESTION: Prefaced by a statement… When someone joins up for the first month, during the second month they apparently have access to all that first month content still. Does that mean EVERYTHING? Even the full game trail selection? And most importantly, if I were to sign up initially in the SECOND month, would I have access to that same content that the person who signed up a month before me has, or would I only get access to content that is made available starting with month 2?
please give current Qore subscribers a discount.
Pleeeease
Will I be able to get this in Canada?
wow i’m so dissapointed the number one requested feature is cross-game-chat sony anounces a new service the psn+ and still dont have an asnwered for us on cross-game-chat I just can’t belive in sony any more….
So are all PSN games going to be free, or are you going to pick what’s free and what’s not? I’d really like to try games like Hexyz Force or Persona 3 when it comes out. (and they would actually have expiration dates for once)
“Additionally, subscribers will always have access to their virtual library of free games for as long as they keep their PlayStation Plus subscription.” so basically, as soon as we cancel our subscription to psn+ we will lose all the freebies?
Will you be adding Cross-game chat soon?
Also, will there be some sort of feature that will back up game saves? Didn’t Gabe Newell mention cloud systems yesterday at the Sony press conference? I’d like it if it was easier to switch hard drives instead of copying your save data to an external hard drive and then copying it back onto your new PS3 HDD.
Sounds good Sony, count me in!!! 8)
bummer if u bought wipeout hd like me-prob still pay for it though-hope they use money to improve dload speeds on psn/work.
my sync speed is 20mb-with http i usually max out at 2350kbps(with dload manager)&2000kbps w/out dload mamanger-simlar speeds on torrent and ftp etc (via ethernet)
when i dload via ps network(ethernet) i can never hit more than 14mbits/(1400kbps) –
in the uk avg sync speed at about 4mbs at the moment so I would expect through dloading on the ps network they will hit max of 3mbits/300 kbps.
Therefore, in reality your ps3 will probably set on fire before you finish downloading a FULL game of the PS netwrok
have sony really thought about this properly – there are very few countries to my knowledge that have sufficient broadband speeds to be able to download a full game in a reasonable time period – and forgive me if I am missing something here because I am not an expert, but if we are not using the disc and downloading the full game, wont that ‘eat up’ your hard drive space (bray game discs hold between 35 and 50 gb of data dont they?
ah well theres my moan out of the way for the day!!!
How about the features that were advertised with HOME like 2 years ago? We ever going to get those?? Do you guys ever listen to the people who pay your bills?? Please get your hand out of my pocket!
good gosh, this sounds like Qore 2.0.. and like someone already said, Sony just kind of ignored it after a while and it came with less and less content. Or like the PSPGo, hype and promised content then they turn around and offer less and less content and support. Does anyone really believe Sony anymore after that? PSN+ is going to sound promising and Sony will dangle carrots in front of your face and then when the subscriptions don’t meet their expectations all the suckers who bought it will be left out to dry.
I am interested in the concept, but the only promo that interests me right now is the three months free. I already own inFamous, so that demo won’t do me any good. Some of the other games are ones I would never play.
I would hope that we could choose our free content from a list in case we already owned copies. That would bump an already good service to a great service.
I read somewhere that Sony doesn’t want to “gimp” the free users. That being said, improved features won’t be on psn+ ie cross game chat. Cross game chat will be for everyone… eventually. I’m just speculating though.
PSN+ seems more of a rental program than anything to me but overall I’d say the content is well worth the $50 price point. Lets be honest, how many people still play their psn games that they purchased over 6 months ago???… probably not many. Especially after you finish up the trophies on those games. So if you lose your “free games” after you quit your subscription, what are you really out? Also I would doubt trophies would be taken back when you no longer subscribe. It’s like renting a game or borrow one. You play it and gain trophies. You don’t lose them when you return the game do you? Of course not. Why would this be any different?
I may get it but what I’m really wanting is offsite game saves and cross game chat. But everyone wants that right?
I already get exclusive themes, demos, betas, etc for my Qore subscription. My question is; IF i subscribe to PSN+ will it include the benifits of a YEARLY QORE subscriber or a per episode buyer?
In other words will the betas, demos, etc we already get from Qore be the same per month as the ones we will get from PSN+?
I sure would join plus… but cannot: https://blog.playstation.com/2010/03/28/ps3-firmware-v3-21-update/
I have a annual QORE subscription (6 months left in it)
Im guessing if I subscribe to PSN+ I just forfit anything I paid into QORE (lose 6 months of subscription time) and get everything thrown into the PSN+ bundle…but would like to know for sure.
There should almost be 2 versions of PSN+ one with QORE and one without…would have solved this issue from the start.