PS Plus Essential: Sony lets you upgrade to Extra and Premium at any time

The new PS Plus is just around the corner and gamers have a lot of questions. How do PS Plus Essential, Extra and Premium behave if you want to switch subscriptions?

Hamburg – Don’t wait much longer, then the old PS Plus is finally history. Since 2010, Sony has been providing PlayStation players with at least two monthly free games for subscribers. Now Sony plans to give PS Plus its first major overhaul so the service can continue to compete with the competing Xbox Game Pass. From now on, the service will be available in three price levels: PS Plus Essential, PS Plus Extra and PS Plus Premium. There are still many unanswered questions about the changeover from PS Plus in June. What happens if you want to upgrade or downgrade an existing PS Plus subscription to PS4 and PS5?

PS Plus Essential: You can always upgrade to Extra or Premium

Can PS Plus Essential be upgraded to Extra or Premium at any time? Sony gives the answer to this question in its own PS Plus FAQ on your website. If players already have a PS Plus Essential subscription, they will be able to upgrade it to a PS Plus Extra or PS Plus Premium subscription at any time for an additional fee.

However, this is not just for a taster for a single month, so the PS Plus upgrade to PS4 and PS5 should be carefully considered. An example: If credit for 8 months of PS Plus Essential is still available on your own account, then the difference from PS Plus Essential to Extra for the remaining 8 months must be paid when upgrading. So for subscribers, it’s all or nothing.

Can PS Plus Premium be upgraded to Essential or Extra at any time? Sony’s PS Plus FAQ does not waste any words on this. However, it should be assumed that downgrading a current PS Plus Premium or Extra membership will not be possible. With the switch to the new PS Plus, Sony naturally wants to make money first and foremost.

If an option to reduce the monthly payment for PS Plus isn’t specifically mentioned by Sony, it’s quite likely that it doesn’t exist either. PS Plus hopping is unlikely to be a way for players to test out the new PS Plus tiers.

PS Plus: Subscription change should create added value on PS4 and PS5

What extras does the new PS Plus actually offer? All existing PS Plus memberships will be converted to a PS Plus Essential subscription for Sony’s transition. Basically nothing is happening here for players. Anyone who pays a surcharge for PS Plus Extra gets access to a constantly changing game library, which is said to contain almost 400 titles that can be played free of charge. Sony has already announced the first titles for PS Plus Extra and Premium, including highlights such as Red Dead Redemption 2. Normal subscribers may be able to look forward to a horror hit on PS Plus in June.

PS Plus Premium subscribers also get access to the massive catalog of games. In addition, free PlayStation Classics are also available for them: including PS1 games, remasters of PS2 titles and PS3 hits for streaming. Likewise, “PS Plus Premium” users can also try out selected games such as Cyberpunk 2077 for almost two hours. If you then decide to buy the game, the progress made up to that point can be taken with you.

Rubric list image: © Unsplash/Sony