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.
PlayStation Nation — First off, thank you for all of your feedback regarding PlayStation Plus. There have been a lot of comments and questions surrounding some of the details of the new subscription service so we wanted to provide a little clarification leading up to its availability on June 29th. It’s a lot of info, but hopefully this helps answer most of your questions.
First off, at launch, PlayStation Plus will offer subscribers the full PlayStation Network game, WipEout HD, PSP minis and PS One Classics such as Fieldrunners, Age of Zombies and Rally Cross, full game trial of inFAMOUS, as well as free monthly episodes of Qore – our high-definition, interactive gaming lifestyle show.
With that, here are the basics of the new subscription service that lives on top of the current PlayStation Network:
- The current PSN features will remain free. We are still very committed to PSN as a free comprehensive entertainment service and are certainly not planning on reducing this service following the launch of PlayStation Plus.
- PlayStation Plus is an evolving service and the features included at launch will be:
- Games
- PS Store Discounts
- Exclusive offers on select demos, betas and early purchases
- Full Game Trial
- Automatic Downloads
- PlayStation Plus can be purchased through PlayStation Store on PS3 as a one-year package or a three-month package. The three-month package is available for $17.99 and the one-year package will be available for $49.99. We will also be offering three additional bonus months for free if you purchase the 1-year package — that’s 15 months total for $49.99.
- Payment is a one-time fee for either package and can be purchased with any of the current PSN Store payment methods – credit card or PSN Cards.
(More info on these below)
Here are more details on the features of PlayStation Plus:
Games & Special Offers: As a subscriber, you can expect to get your hands on free monthly PSN games, minis and PS One Classics from the PSN Store. You will be able to download these games during the month they are available until the new selection replaces them.
Once downloaded, the games are yours to keep and play as long as you are a member of PlayStation Plus. If your subscription lapses and then you re-subscribe, the games you have already downloaded will reactivate, so you still have access to them. Additionally, if you delete one of the titles from your PS3, but decide you want to get it back, then you can re-download from the PlayStation Plus section of the PSN Store if the game is still there, or, if the game has expired from the PlayStation Plus section of the PSN Store, you can simply search for it on PS Store and download it again at no extra cost.
Each month there will be dynamic themes, premium avatars and premium game elements/add-ons for you to download and many will be exclusive to PlayStation Plus members only. These are yours to keep forever once you have downloaded them.
PlayStation Plus subscribers will also be given exclusive PlayStation Store discounts each month that are above and beyond the current PSN Store discounts available to everyone. These discounts will range from 20% to 50%, and anything you buy with these is yours to keep and enjoy forever.
Finally, wherever possible we’ll be making sure that members are included in selected demos and beta trials before they go live to everyone else, so you can be the one to tell all your friends about the next big game they ‘must’ get.
Subscribers will get hundreds of dollars of value through the year and, in the first month alone, will receive more than $50 worth of content.
Full Game Trial: Each month we will be offering members the chance to download full games and try them out for a period of time (one hour, unless otherwise stated). After the game trial is complete, simply purchase the game to carry on where you left off. This is a unique way to trial the full game experience and means you don’t have to be restricted to certain levels/game modes when you test out a game.
The games in Full Game Trial will become available to all PS Store users to purchase, but only PlayStation Plus members will have the chance to ‘try before you buy’.
The other great thing about this feature is that you can continue from where you were at the end of the trial period if you decide to buy the game. All game saves and trophies earned during the trial will be unlocked and will show up on your trophy list and your trophy level when you purchase the game. You don’t even have to re-download the game, just purchase and go back to the XMB to access the game.
Automatic Download: Subscribers will be able to set their PS3 to wake up from standby at any time of the day or night, download and install any game updates for the games you have been playing so you don’t have to think about it. Also, select demos and videos will be pushed to your PS3 ready to go. System software updates will also download automatically (manual install still required) and then the PS3 will turn itself off again.
Game updates and demos will also automatically install and the next time you turn on your PS3 you will see a brief on-screen message letting you know what has been downloaded and updated.
Here are some more answers to frequently asked questions from the last blog post:
- Cross-game voice chat is a feature we know our passionate user base has asked for and we’ll continue to look at as a viable offering for the PlayStation Network.
- You need to be the master account holder on the PS3 and be over 18 to purchase PlayStation Plus, but other accounts on that PS3 will be able to play the games you download for as long as you are a subscriber.
- The “free” games you can download each month are yours to keep for as long as you are a subscriber.
- PlayStation Plus is for PS3 owners as subscribership can only be purchased on the PSN Store. However, some of the content – minis and PS One Classics – available each month will also be playable on your PSP if you have one. Download them on the PS3 and transfer to your PSP, or download directly from the PSP Store or Media Go for PSP.
PlayStation Plus is a continually evolving service and we are always working on identifying new partnerships, developing new features and providing new content that our users want. So thanks again for all your comments and questions and please continue to offer more ideas at PlayStation.Blog Share.
people this is an amazing deal the PAL regions get 4 games a month, so let’s assume that NTSC would get the same. when you pay for a year you get 3 months free, so that’s 60 games for 50 bucks and that’s not including free dlc, avatars, themes, discounts, and beta’s. I know you dont keep the games forever , but come on 60 games that is AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
plz reply to #345
since this is the only way i will be paying for PSN plus
After hearing the beyond podcast at IGN (with Jeff no less), I realize how much bigger of a deal the discount program is. They should have lead the charge with that, because i do frequently buy things on the PSN and this will help
We want LittleBigPlanet also! u can remove my 3 months bonus! but I want LittleBigPlanet just like in EU that even my subs expired i will still be able to play! and I have a question, what if i already have Wipeout HD can i choose a different game to download for my free download?
Wait it’s a one time fee? Meaning you don’t pay another $50 if you want another? Because jack tretton made it seem like its a yearly payment every time you want it.
This is a cool concept – the only issue I have is that the automatic download of game updates should be free!
Not knowing there’s an update until we fire up a game we haven’t played for a while, then making us wait, unable to even background-download, before we can play is like something out of the 1990s! Basic automatic background downloading is something that should have been here since day one.
Not everybody has ultra-fast broadband – it took me 5 hours to download all the updates to LittleBigPlanet, and I’m on one of the faster DSL plans in my country… my first evening with the game was spent watching a download progress bar until 2am in the morning. Not acceptable!
@345 yes your sub-accounts can acess the content.
So you released all sorts of super detailed info on Cross game voice on Sony sites,pulled it,and are now gonna pretend like nothing happened at all.PS plus in its current form is an insult to the users who your trying to grab here.You literally have nothing to offer i don’t have,other than the ability to dl patches/firmware i hardly notice anyway.
Obviously the PS3 for w/e reason is not capable of Cross game voice or you would have released it to much fanfare a LONG time ago,why not just tell us that and stop treating us like rejects with this carrot on a stick BS.
as part of the automatic turn on of the ps3 for use of downloads and updates. will that also be a feature to be used as a auto turn on to get my game started early???? that would be amazing when school starts back up
Thanks for the details. I never play my PS3 anymore since I got a job, but I think I’ll be getting this as well, what a value.
LEARN TO READ, WHEN YOUR SUBSCRIPTION END, THE FREE GAMES WILL NOT WORK, ONLY THE ONES YOU PAID FOR ARE GOING TO WORK. DID READ WHAT IVE SAID, ONLY THE GAMES YOU PAID FOR ARE GOING TO WORK IF YOUR SUBSCRIPTION EXPIRED.
Still would like to know if I can use my subscription on multiple PS3 tied to my id…I own two and soon 3 PS3s…
what about mexican acounts? we will be getting the same games?
@ 354 thanks for awnsering,also do we need to buy it on main account, or can i buy it from sub account. or can i change my main account over to my current one
@361 pretty sure you need to do it from the master account. once an account becomes the master account it stays that way
I’m not buying this crap.. SONY is famous with his “over promise, under delivery” service. Just look at PSP Go, how do they support it? Don’t expect SONY will release any good PS1 games, especially when it’s free…
why dont we get the free add-on for games that get the europe pleopl
why dont we get the free add-on for games that get the europe pleople
all i want is cross game chat the other stuff i can live without. it be cool to have cross game invites 2 and a music player so we can play music during all games it does everything but its also imagining half of it
I just paid for Qore 2-3 months ago. Normally the things you download from that whether they be PS1 Classics or PSN games or themes, etc are yours to keep. How is that affected with the PS Plus? Also what about people like me who already have Qore? Do we get a partial refund or something?
I’m not sure if someone asked this question but can you still buy games from the PlayStation Store once you open a PlayStation Plus subscription and keep those once your subscription expires? I wish with PlayStation Plus you allowed unlimited movie viewing from the PlayStation Video Store until subscription expires. Right now I feel that once PlayStation Plus is launched, you guys will stop giving us as much free content that you already give. I’m afraid to be trapped in spending continuous amounts of money for temporary use of things when money making my system’s value stagnant one subscription expires.
I don’t like the idea of “Free games” but you loose them if you cut off your subscription. That right there is a “NO!” screaming at me if I even consider the service.
Not to mention that I buy any PSN, PS1 or Mini game I want already… discounts are fine, but I’m not convinced they’ll add up to that $50/yr very quickly at all.
Early, Beta, Demo and Qore access really does nothing for me either.
The only really big thing that appeals to me is the automatic download thing… which sounds kewl. But I can live without it… as I’ll just set up demo or game downloads for the night and instruct my PS3 to turn off when done, it’s really not that much of a hassle.
Sorry Sony, you’ve still got some convincing to do with me before I fork over my dough for the service.
Will the saps who subscribed to Qore(ie: Me)get some kind of discount if we “upgrade” to Plus?
The question to be answered is: What about current Qore subscribers?? Two words Sony: Upgrade fee…..
Whoa, I’ve bought 21 psone classics so far, what are the discounts on those going to be?
WOW, you guys dropped the ball here. You left us with MORE QUESTIONS then answers. All this post is an extented verison of what we read & heard at E3. I’m putting the author of this post on the front line. Susan come on now your “provide a little clarification” all you did was make it worse. And why are you or no one else our answering questions on this blog? Bottom line PSN+ has alot of potential but We NEED answers first. Why don’t you have a LIVE CHAT before the 29th. And people GIVE IT A REST with cross game chat. We will get it when the time is right. And to qoute your new PSP TV commercial “STEP YOUR GAME UP” in reguarding PSN+
*START RANT*
People DO NOT BUY THIS SERVICE voice yourself and dont let sony sell you some half assed idea when they could offer up much more.
We should not be forced into paying the $25 price tag for qore if we do not want it. Give us at least the option to have qore included for $50 or without qore for $25 for a year.
We should be the ones who pick the free games, and dlc that we want for the month, since we are paying for it. We dont want some ps1 game that nobody has ever heard of, or some dlc for a game that nobodys even playing anymore..
PS Store discounts sound great but, wheres the discounts on games or dlc that has been on there forever?? Warhawk should get a price cut, socom should get a price cut, not just for a week but permanatly. What about games that you are still selling dlc to for the online portion of games?? A good example is EA they love to shut down servers.. Lord of the rings conquest online dlc still being sold.. The online servers were shut off..
Whats with the other features that should clearly be free.. Automatic downloads.. Really?? Cross game voice chat should be free, you guys will only hang it over everyons heads cuz you know we have all been asking for it since day 1.
Wheres all the other features included from past firmwares?? What happend to Youtube recording?? Or how about ingame screen shots?? Both perfect ways to report people for cheating in games or harassing players.. Atleast get smart and start making it MANDATORY for game devs to include these features.
Ingame Music for all games. Both local files and streaming over network, should be included or mandated to be incuded in all games in the furture.
i wont go into the rest of my rant in this post since its related more to the xmb and the slugish design.
*END RANT*
YAY! CROSS GAME VOICE CHAT WILL BE FREE!!!!! YES! I LOVE U SONY!
Great Idea! I will have it the first day! I think there is one thing you should add, a free subscription to PTOM (PlayStation The Official Magazine or maybe for a few dollars more. Oh wait you can vote on it under PlayStation Share and here is the link: https://share.blog.us.playstation.com/ideas/2010/06/23/free-ptom-subscription-with-psn-plus/
Why won’t Sony just post what 3 Months of PSN+ service includes:
Since it is ONLY a Monthly Service: just read what EU has for 2 Months here and Judge for yourself:
https://blog.eu.playstation.com/2010/06/23/playstation-plus-explained/#comments
The 1hr Trial Games are all PSN Games and they are already have DEMO’s!
One DLC a Month for older titles and you must have bought the Game already.
ONLY 4 Discounts a Month with Majority only 20% off.
ONLY 2 Avatars a Month from ONE Game.
ONLY 2 Exclusive Demo’s a Month but will be available to free PSN users.
Is Medal of Honor in that list of beta? Also when will the 3 month bonuses for the whole year pack end?
Let me upgrade my sub account to a full master account (turned 18 since I got the PS3 and my account) and I will get this for sure!
excited about all of this, not so excited about the fact that we can’t choose the free game. i have wipeout HD. I actually wouldn’t mind the wipeout hd expansion pack in its stead. Kinda feel like i shouldn’t buy games when they are released because they may be released in the future for free as part of a promotion similar to this.
“Once downloaded, the games are yours to keep and play as long as you are a member of PlayStation Plus”
…This kills it before it even started.
I would like to see a different full game title besides LBP myself. Maybe make Infamous the free game as incentive.
I wish that this PlayStation Plus included “all you can eat” movies & TV shows,
How long will the promotion of 3-months free with purchase of 1-year be?
I’m interested in actually getting PS+, and I am willing to pay for the full year as long as I get the 3-months free when I order it in like August or something.
Won’t be even considering this as we are still waiting on the basic services such as the video store 8 months after its release to other countries within the EU and we haven’t received an explanation as to why after repeated attempts to find out.
Why would we pay for a service when you cannot provide us with your other basic services.
I love the PS3, I am a borderline fanboy, but with your customer service as it is how can you expect me to pay for a service?
Ya know theres only 2 ways I would subscribe to this service
1) PS2 capability for my 40 gig, my 60 gig has the ps2 capability but my 60 gig is also 2 states away right now.
2) give me back my other OS feature that was one of the selling points of the PS3 for me to act as a back up computer, something I greatly needed just about the time you took it away from us.
and before anyone gets on me about other os being closed because of the “easier hacking” arguement get over that one the system has been cracked without other os so just give me back my linux kernel on my ps3
@oLiam0 you guys have the bbc player, play tv, vidzone to name a few things. All we in the us have is the video store, which personally i will never use.
@brkn_ogr the ps3 hasnt been fully cracked, geohot found a way to read the memory and such, but you would still need a way to run or install code on to the ps3 from what i read.
Hmmmmm….if these trials were going to be for games that were not yet out, I’d be more inclined to go with this. But trials for games that are already out??? That’s what we have blockbuster and rogers video and everything for (Canada)
I might go for the one year thing, but I think it’s stupid that we get 3 months free (big whoop) whereas Europe gets an entire free game???? I’m getting really PO’d with all this special stuff Europe has been getting that we’re getting ******* out of over here.
Not to mention, are we Canadians going to get everything free that the US gets??? Or is there going to be stupid crap pulled, like the SF4 costume packs not showing up on Canadian accounts and taking freaking 3 years to get us a video store finally??? Can’t tell you how excited I was to watch that X’amd anime, only to find out, NO, you’re in Canada, F you!
I’m still on the fence on this. Some of it sounds good, but you guys have done that whole over promise, under deliver stuff quite a lot on many things before. Hopefully this doesn’t turn out like that.
I just bought a subscription to Qore about 5/6 months ago.
Can this carry over to my Playstation Plus account, meaning I get a discount for already having Qore?
i have 1 teenie tiny question since im hittin onto da 400th comment N couldn’t read all posts (just sum) plz explain how da fuuk do uu expect us too start DLin 10GB+ games??? although im not hatin i knw sony got sumtin hugh in store 4 da HOLIDAYz trust me truuuuuuuuuuuuuuust, uu ppl think dat shat BOX gonna get away witta 260gb HDD or wateva it iz, itz still a xBRICKz witta fail disc drive itz 2010 ppl get wit da program PLZ i get it Downloadble blueray games rr da future but hey microsoft got sum catchin up too do thanxz sony i would buy da whole plus package since i want wipeOUT N all, online dat b!tch but supa iffy on da blueray game rentalz just sayin if this gets explained by august since datz round da deadline or so den iLL bee a must buy 4 all i mean it must be cleared up i dnt knw anyone who even DL on PSN more den 6 too 8 GB of data just sayin on average but come HOLIDAYz we knw sony got sumtin ready too drop dat price on microsoft productz WE ALREADY KNOW homie relax relax uu HOMIEz im talkin too <—– 'wink' 'wink' dozen't exactly make it clear p.s. great job on releasin dat shiny black slim Xblock dnt uu think it was a lil too early "wink" SONY comin 4 uu holidayz
Everything summed up here.. First things first. I don’t understand this.. I thought it was already confirmed PSN+ subscribers were getting cross-game chat?? AND that non-PSN+ users could also participate in them as long as at least one PSN+ member is participating in it? I know I read official statements somewhere.
Second, I completely agree that PSN supporters that have bought over 100 PSN games over the last 3+ years would very much be getting shafted if you guys kept throwing old PSN games at us, recycling them and offering stuff that most PSN users already own. There has to be some way of getting around that and increasing PSN+’s appeal to hardcore Playstation 3 fans, such as myself, that have supported you from day one.
Third, I am sure we will see a list of everything that is included just like the EU PSN, so please stop whining like a bunch of 12 year olds ;) .. this isn’t LIVE after all. That’s awesome that they are getting LBP to keep forever for free, regardless of whether they cancel or not. I see that as being much more valuable than getting 3 months free of “renting” games.
Last but not least cloud saving for game saves is a wonderful idea. Not being able to play my some of my saves (like AC2) on my other or my friends systems really blows. I love sony and support everything you guys do, and please give us cross-game chat already or just tell us it is impossible, which I really doubt.
Hence I could be playing Burnout, listening to the music off my PS3s hard drive, talking to all 8 people in the room, and being able to check their trophies… Yes, I doubt cross-game chat is impossible. I’ll take an order of PSN+ with X-game chat please, like you promised.
http://www.joystiq.com/2010/06/15/cross-game-party-chat-coming-to-ps3-with-strings-attached/
So, I guess that means that it is coming, but at a once again unknown and much overdue time window.. [DELETED]
@smkalot
Sony never confirmed cross game chat, ever.
In fact, this is the first time they’ve even acknowledged it’s exsistence.
So no, Xgame chat isn’t going to be in PSN+ “like they promosed” because they never promised.
If they did, then a google search would bring up about 1200 articles with the exact same quote in it from some employee of sony.
Honestly, people need to stop saying they aren’t buying it because it’s missing something… then don’t.
People are buying PSN+ for what it offers, I personally didn’t succumb to all that rumour nonsense. geez.
I dont think these corporate guys at Sony play video games…This is a waste of time, nothing in this package is remotely interesting. Hey Sony, if you want to make people happy by adding stuff that matters, read the fockin blog.share that YOU made. Great ideas just sitting there being ignored…
I would rather pay the $50 annually if i were given some assurances that alot of those ideas were being brought to life than for this rental crap…