PS Plus Subscriptions on Sale Now, But There's a Big Catch

Well this is a slap in the face for existing premium customers. Sony are really doing their best to burn through PS+ subscribers good will over the last few months.

I just resubbed for essential from essential with 25% discount with a month left.

Edit: Just want to add that I don't think stacking is a thing anymore at sale price. If you have more then a year left on your subscription, you will be unable to add at the sale price.

Come on Sony get this sorted.
I was gonna buy another 12 months to add on to my existing like I always do.
I don’t want to upgrade.

@NinjaSixx It usually goes on sale at christmas and in january as well right? If they don't improve the selection before then i'm out

I guess they got what they wished for: I’m switching permanently to Game Pass from Premium. Even if I did get the discount it’s way too expensive, plus the quality of games is terrible the last couple of months.

Just did it, extended my current sub at 30 percent off using the PlayStation app on my phone .
So no idea what the problem is

Just tried on PS5 to add onto my PS essential still £59.99.
It might change hopefully.
What annoys me more is cloud saves behind a locked door, meaning I can cloud save but others logged onto my console don’t get cloud saves they have to join PS essentials and can’t go on the back of my cloud save PS essentials.
Xbox allows this so you all get cloud saves off just my membership.

No problems here either, have two months left on my current annual sub for PS Plus Extra but just bought another year for £75 on the mobile app, so 25% off the £99.99 price as expected.

Discount for extra is available for me via the app whilst still subbed to extra

I've got 5 days left of my essential subscription but I'll just let it lapse. Not really feeling games at the moment. Reading is what I'm enjoying the most and I've a mountain of t.v. and movies to get to as well. I have a ridiculous backlog of games waiting for me when I fancy playing switch/PS5 again!

LOL at the discount price being EXACTLY what the price was before the price hike. Someone at sony is truly disturbed. Its at this point that I would mind Microsoft finally catching up and giving sony a taste of its own medicine.

I have 10 months left on my sub and i can't extend at the reduced price via website or App wonder if it only works if you have under say 3 months left on your sub. Sony seem to make baffling decisions all the time now. This move is more likely to push me to not renew my sub at all.

Last month of premium for me and no discounts showing via the console or the app.

@Andyhunter132
I get what you mean but in Europe and UK Xbox are so far behind and insignificant Sony totally own the patch like gang leaders running riot.

I managed to snag a 100% discount by canceling my subscription to PS Plus.

I'm pretty sure mine expires on Monday or Tuesday next week. Once expired would I be technically classed as a new customer?

£75 for extra isn't bad but then for the sake of an extra £9 it's probably worth it for Premium again

No discount for premium is a joke right. Mine expires in January 😅

@Darude84 I think the existence of day-one games, plus EA Play just makes Game Pass so much better value. Even if it increased by a few quid, I'd still happily subscribe. The same cannot be said for PS+ recently.

@LiamCroft I can stack my Essential subscription at the discount price through the app (although 25% discount, not 30%)

https://i.ibb.co/nR9wp3Y/IMG-9633.png
https://i.ibb.co/r63Bp2F/IMG-9634.png

I got to renew Premium at discounted price, but my friend hasn't been able so far so who knows what's going on.

I only have the discount available for the remaining days on my subscription. Full price after that.

Im still subbed and it allows me to add another year of extra at the discount price, I tried through the app. My sub runs out soon too.

That's awful! hope this is an error

@Czar_Khastik oh, but you lose the remaining time? Well my sub is ending next month, still worth it i suppose

I was gonna check on my app but it won't let me log in at the moment - "Can't connect to the server. (18.af361060.1700215736.5ee9715)"

@Nekomichu that was a joke, they're saying they're not going to use PS+ anymore

@Voltan ouch, my bad, I read it fast,

I’ll probably upgrade to premium at these prices. Or might just let it lapse on the 20th and get Extra again at a reduced price. Not sure.

I see the discounted extension (mine ends in a month or so) for the base tier in the app. From 72 euros goes to 57.

First year (or maybe second) since 2008 I won’t have it. Not going to miss it.

I logged in on my PS5 and the subscription front page literally says "Save upto 30%

Extend your current plan to save 25% or upgrade to save more!"

Are people actually getting different PSN front page screens?

Turns out the login thing is most likely related to my work network, I logged in fine after disconnecting from WiFi.
I do not see a discount when trying to extend my subscription.
Looks like the 25% extension discount is only for Essential?

This sucks

So my sub(extra) has 15 days left and it gives me a discount of 25%(95 euros for an annual sub) on the same tier.If i wanted to go to premium i dont have the option of an annual renewal i can pay 1.75 for the next 15 days...Does anyone know untill what date is this "offer" active...

@Nekomichu Actually, when you submit the cancelation, you can continue to use the service until it runs out. When you cancel it, you basically just prevent the automatic renewal process.

1. Here is what it said before I canceled:
"CANCEL SUBSCRIPTION
If you cancel now, you can still enjoy your subscription until 12/15/2023."

2. Here is what is said after I canceled:
"Your cancellation is confirmed. The PlayStation®Plus: 12 Month Membership - 33% Off subscription will cancel on 12/15/2023. You can reactivate the subscription anytime before 12/15/2023."

@Nyne it's until the 27th

Nope, no discount for me if I want to add one more year. I am in Bulgaria. My sub expires in August 2024 so ... maybe this also contributes. But if I had I would have added it now.

@Czar_Khastik I assume, there is no discount for you now if you try to purchase a year being currently cancelled. isn't it?

@Nekomichu After reactivating it says:

"Your reactivation is confirmed. Your next payment of €58,13 will be charged on 12/15/2023."

So no, I didn't get any discount (I'm on PS Plus Essential). Time to cancel again

@Czar_Khastik Ouch >_< Thanks for the info

Yeah I can only buy another year's subscription at the full price. I've only tried through the app so far.

@Czar_Khastik

The Spanish Playstation Support chat worker just said to me that the discount should apply for all people, not only upgrades.

They suggest that it should be an error

Fingers crossed

Edit: Also just checked the spanish blog and they use the word "actualizar" that means update, (not upgrade)

@Darude84 expensive? And GamePass is not expensive? There is regular couple of times in year discount. Through shopto its possible to buy Gift cards with extra 13-16% off. It is at the end less than 50% from Game Pass value. Yes, GamePass could have some games better. But if you buy Premium for ps2, Ps1 games? If not, then Extra is way to go...
Stars rewards gives back 4% in store credits for every spent money if you choose to cash out to your wallet those points.
For example, I can upgrade 933 days of Extra to Premium for 35,79£ on BF deal from 51,14£
If I buy gift card, it would cost me roughly 30,42£. Add Stars rewards, it goes down to 28,99£. Magic

Just wait a little longer and you will get a 50% discount as every december you do.

@REALAIS I have GP so much cheaper (via the Games with Gold conversion option).

And the regular discounts for PS Plus (that card business is too much of a hassle for me) only work when upgrading, this article says. So you first have to let your subscription run out to use a next promotion and even then you pay full price of what the subscription used to cost before the extreme price increase.

It’s just not worth it for my anymore, especially seeing the sort of games we’re getting nowadays.

@Darude84 Couldn’t agree more. Over the last few years I’ve found that PS+ has been a waste for me. Once Diablo 4 hits GamePass I’ll have no need of tbr online play portion of PS+ either.

PS+ Essentials here, US Account
Can't Extend with a Discount! - it costs full 79.99$ on the PS App and PS5
I have 74 USD left...
I can only get a discount if I upgrade to Extra or Premium - I don't want to upgrade - I want to extend and buy another 12 months Subscription - but I'm definitely not paying the full 80$ price!

Come PlayStation this sucks!
They are forcing us to upgrade to Extra or Premium, and then paying another 12 months?!
I just want to Extend ... It's already Overpriced

Good until 4th Dec 2024 so I'm sticking as is until that runs out.

I was on Essential (PS+ as was) and last time I stacked a sub, I had the option to upgrade to Extra for about £5 - and it added it to the full length of my PS+ sub so I ended up with about 18 months of Extra over the Essential price for about a fiver. Weird. Not mentioned it to Sony in case they'd fluffed something up!

I upgraded a while ago on my old cheaper priced PS Extra that I've had a while to try Premium, and it runs until the time of year where it goes on sale again anyway, like it does every year. Don't commit to extra time if youve got a good few months left, especially now there is no stacking, just wait. Or upgrade via the regular upgrade option if you just want to try a higher tier out for a while.

These sales just capture people panicking that it might never be cheaper again. But they are great for new owners, as then their subs will always run out at the next sale if they start now.

I wonder if people who have cancelled their subscription are getting the 30% discount offer. My Premium expires in 12 days and I cancelled it a couple of months ago. I have the option to buy Premium again at 30% off ($132.99 CDN, regular price $189.99). I’m not (sticking with GamePass as I can get it for $90 CDN here) but seeing the mix of results in the comments, that might be, at least, part of what’s going on.

Edit: I also only checked through the app, haven’t checked on console. Also in Canada for what it’s worth; maybe it’s a regional issue, country by country?

It's not letting me access subscriptions at all, just an error message, with a month of premium left.I suspect it's a bug rather than a deliberate choice to not let existing subscribers have the deal, just a guess though.

Edit especially as the add reads on my ps5 home screen 'extend your current plan to save 30% for another year'

I just put in a call to good old Jim Ryan and he said don't worry folks, it's just a bug on the store, nobody should be getting any discount . . then he hung up!

@NinjaSixx that would be right if it was working I think. 25% off extra and 30% off premium is what they usually do if I remember right.

Guys just a friendly warning!
The worst thing you can do ever is upgrade to premium. Well it's not the worst if you wanna keep paying for it later. Because whenever you want to downgrade you must wait until your sub ends. Upgrading works straight, within few minutes, but downgrade does not work like that.
So let's say you have premium right now and you want extend your sub with extra or essential, that means you can't. You can set your sub to downgrade and that tier (premium) it will last until the next payment, and then you will be charged for the lower tier.
So when any deals like black friday happens, you can extend it with premium or nothing clever huh?
Right now I have premium so I will wait until it ends then I will sub for single months with about 3 weeks gaps (cost cutting) and I hope I catch another discount.
Starting a new account could solve this but like that I lose access all essential games and cloud saves too. So just be aware how things works because I did not know when I upgraded to premium 2 years ago. And since they increased premium 50% in my country I'm not and I can't pay for that much.

@K1LLEGAL You mean 2010? Plus wasn't out back in '08. Did I misunderstand you?

I let my subscription run out in late September and I still don't regret it. A price drop/ better sale is inevitable in the near future with the current decline of subs so I'm being patient for now.

@Rafie No you are right i’m being dumb. I got my PS3 in 2008. Well I had plus in 2011 as there was an outage I remember so I guess from then. And then I feel I missed a year (or some months) in the PS4 gen at some point as I remember not being able to claim some Vita games. But yea I will get FOMO on the free games but I never end up playing them anyway.

@Darude84 With the discount its the same price it always was and cheaper than gp 😑

I was able to extend mine for £44.99, once I had done it I couldn't extend again at the discount.

Mine runs out in march and I doubt I'll renew unless Sony come up with something decent. Most of my games are single player and the online games I do play, I don't need a subscription for. I don't remember the last PSPlus game I downloaded and enjoyed.

Can't seem to find a way to extend my Extra sub with a discounted rate - went to sub management and it said it was $135.
If I can't add time with a discount that's a major bummer. I like Extra and I don't think $135 is unreasonable, but it might be more than I'm willing to spend year in and out.

Looks pretty broken to me 🤣

Says upgrade for 30% off a 12 month Premium subscription.

Then proceeds to offer me 30% off £1.75 for the remaining 31 days of my Extra subscription.

£99.99 to extend.

@Vega37 Same price as before, so a bad deal since you used to get the same discount over the old price. Plus so far it’s not possible to get the discount when you already got Premium.

Also, about the price is not true. Premium is € 151,99 a year while GP Ultimate via the Games with Gold converter (offered by Microsoft themselves) is € 6,99 a month.

I cancelled my subscription the other week. It'll run out around May. I was thinking if the price was right on a black Friday deal I could be convinced to extend it but that's not the case. Full price for me.

Hey guys, the #s are incorrect for Essential. I'm only seeing a 20% discount for Essential, they are asking me to pay $63.99 for a new sub. It's only $8 but it's pissing me off enough to stay lapsed

I guess Sony hates money

I'm not upgrading to Premium, next year I'm having it downgraded to Essential. This sale is useless and pointless trash.

I'm going to let my premium lapse and am then downgrading to extra. I'll only get premium if they really start adding ps2 games or get PS3 emulation working. I'm not going to keep paying for games I can just play on my Vita anyway (yes I still use my Vita).

@RudeAnimat0r
Didn't read the article? Discount only applies for new members or people who are upgrading to a higher tier.

@ATaco Based on the comments it sounded like some people were able to renew with a discount.

@RudeAnimat0r do you have more than a year left on your current sub? It's been suggested that you can make use of the discount if and only if you have less than a year until it expires.

@theheadofabroom Yah, I have 9 months left.

We’ll got 3 Weeks left on my subscription if it don’t go on sale by then. Just going to let it go faithful since ps1 games have lost it’s thing that got me hooked in the first place. Kept buying every new thing but now it’s just oh well. Well had fun while it lasted Sony ✋😃 good luck maybe il buy something If the technology truly has a breakthrough in gaming. Honestly just play when I’m board and got an hour to spare once a week . Just played online multiplayer campaign or story modes seem repetitive to me tho I get tired of same stuff. So no disrespect if story modes are your thing.Online multiplayer always different type of difficulty. Plus all ones I grew up playing with WAW Zombies dropped a console ago. Solo playing online since hard to be one line wolf. And hard to get in cool with groups on open world games. Otherwise bet ppl having blast in like war zone or team work games and randoms not helping anyone but themselves lol.

Currently on Premium, having got Extra for £59 in December (£25 off deal) then upgraded to Premium for the last 6 months.
Although, the best deal was actually in January, Extra was £50 & Premium £66.

Looking at the app, "Buy again and save 30% -
£83.99".

The old PS+ Extra full price, how generous, but no thanks Sony. Happy to let it lapse next month, as I just don't use subs like this enough to justify the cost. After a few months, I ended up just playing my existing PS4 disc & digital libraries and other systems (inc getting back into PS3).

30% is the best they can offer? Bah they can do better than that smh

I'm currently on Extra and all it is offering me is an upgrade to Premium for £3.50 for my remaining 63 days.
What are you playing at Sony I was planning to renew Extra as I have no interest in premium but I guess I'll just have to let it lapse and buy extra again at the Easter discounts.

that's weird , because I checked my premium ps plus account and I can extend it for 30% off

After 7 years membership, I quit

@atthegates ok, i'm gonna wait till then, usual places there is no discount at all for plus extra atm, i'm assuming this is a US only deal currently, they are treating UK customers like crap 🙄

@DragoonZied i just checked too, this is a US done deal 😑

@RudeAnimat0r nope i checked and logged in, UK, £99.99 to renew, no discount whatsoever

@Mu5hr00m_K1ngd0m yeah that is what i see £99.99 to extend, i will put it lightly on how i feel about that 😡

Those aren't good prices I'm guessing ima let mine expire

This has been happening for at least the second year in a row, why are you guys always shocked by this?

I just want to confirm that I also get 30% off message, if I renew. No need to upgrade. Both on the app and if I go to the subscriptions menu on my PS5.

For anyone that's interested , CDkeys are selling an £84 playstation credit voucher for £74.99 meaning you can essentially upgrade to premium for the same discounted price as Extra.

I'm unsure but I assume it's a UK only thing

https://www.cdkeys.com/psn/playstation-gift-card-84-gbp

…This is what happens when companies get overconfident, they poop on the customers who helped them get there…

Well I managed to extend my premium subscription at the offer price through the app so I can say you should be able to do that at least.

I’m only getting the option of upgrading to the next level for the remainder of my current subscription. So that gets me from Essential to Extra, at a 25% discount, for just 12 days - £1.04.

After that, it recharges at the full £99.99. That’s no incentive.

Wow Sony, you really don't like your premium cash cows. I know you're a business to make money, but you can make money while also not being an absolute prick.
It's becoming more and more a tagline here for me, but again, get your sh** together Sony!

So currently I can upgrade to Premium from Extra with 30% off. For 6 days. Taking the total from 33p to 22p. 😂

But I can renew Extra for 12 months with 25% off. No Essential discount which is a shame as I was going to drop down to that.

I'm getting nothing from the ps store or via the app. I can continue my sub for £99 and there is nothing about 30% or 25% off as people are saying here. I'm not interested in premium but its really odd how some people claim to have been able to renew at a discounted price and everybody else is not able to. I dont understand whats going on? Are some people telling porkies or are some people being excluded from the discount? Very strange indeed.

@Northern_munkey

My App is definitely offering the discount (I haven't checked on the actual PS5 to be fair but I assume it's the same)

I only wish you could share an image on here then I could screenshot it and show you.

My PS Plus Premium is due to expire in a few days, maybe that's why the offer is there for me???

Im not saying that's the reason, just trying to think of a reason I can see it and you can't

@Member_the_game mine exires on the 30th of this month. This is incredibly strange as i'm not the only one experiencing this. Even pushsquare can not see the discounts.

@Northern_munkey

I've just taken a screenshot and changed it to my profile picture so you can see it.

Very strange indeed though why it's not there for everyone

@Member_the_game well i'm glad you can take advantage of this offer but i've just gone through the psn store via the ps5 again and the app just to make certain i was not being a total **** and missing something but there is nothing on offer there on any of the sub plans. Everything is full price.

@Member_the_game ok now this gets stranger. I can now upgrade to premium and save 30% for £119.99 for 12 months or keep my existing sub for £99.99 for 12 months...WTF is going on with sony..black friday is more like freaky friday 🤣

Yeah I got a discount to extend my premium...didn't really want to stay on premium but oh well....bought a 84 gift card on shopto for 75 and used that ..so £75 to renew premium for the year for me

I'm from the UK and my premium was due to expire next month and I did it through the app...don't know if any of that is why I got the discount while others haven't

This is shocking. So I don't get anything even though I have the highest subscription. I can understand not giving anything to people that are on the lowest when they want the same tier...but I'm on the highest and can't go anywhere 😂

@TheOnceAndFutureKing Essential as well. I didn’t test but your word is good enough for me. What a waste. Every year I always buy a year or two at Christmas. Looks like I’ll let it lapse for the first time since the program was offered.

@Lukasamba

"Just wait a little longer and you will get a 50% discount as every December you do."

You do until you don't.

Disgusting how much they charge just to play online , mine runs out soon won’t bother with online till it’s cheap , Sony really are pushing me to pc gaming

I imagine the supposed discounts were considered to retain or push up subscriber numbers. I don't know what the numbers are but I've heard a number of people mention just letting it expire. It's probably going to level out and maybe begin to decline soon.

I'll probably just begin using Gamepass. I'm not a huge fan of subscription services either way, but day one releases and additional subscription services on top of that really sold me on the idea. Plus, kinda want to see what Starfield is all about, try Cities Skylines 2 and give Crusader Kings another go.

@PSPancho Yeah, same here, but it's two says so I'd save like 8p, then seemingly need to pay full price. If I could get 25% off to go from Essential to Plus I'd probably do it, but this offer just makes no sense.

I can get 30% off to renew Premium but I wanted to drop down to Essentials as I only really want my monthly games, but I get no dicsount for that tier.

My sub expires on the 22nd so hopefully I will get offered a discount, if I dont not sure I will renew honestly.
A shame as I will miss my games from essential.

The 30% price hike has just left a bad taste in my mouth.

@StylesT for next time, the £40 cards have a slightly better discount - I got two from Shopto for £68.

is it worth waiting for a PS plus discount at Xmas? will there even be an Xmas discount?
I can't decide whether to buy a subscription now or gamble and wait another month.

Are the FREE movies any good for PS plus Premium in the UK?

Can you stream all the PS5 games in the PS plus catalogue now?
The streaming service would be quite useful if all the PS plus catalogue game are available so I can try out games for 20 mins without having to download 30-100gb games and then delete them 20 mins later if I don't like them.

@Mythologue Starfield is average in my opinion I stopped playing it after 3 hours. It felt very dated.

As a PS Plus member since the PS3, I was going to look over the PS Plus games deals this week only to get an unpassable "Upgrade" prompt; ditto the "Essentials" tier being excluded from any re-up discounts. So not only has the annual price of PS Plus jumped from $49.99 across the board to $79.99 FOR THE LOWEST TIER (and THREE TIMES THAT at $150 for "Premium") within roughly 2 years, but folks in the Essential tier literally get treated like we're not worth Sony's interest anymore. Basically Sony wants us to pay dozens of dollars MORE (on top of a 75% increase already) just to be able to access the same benefits we used to all enjoy, more or less. Folks, that isn't mere "capitalism", it isn't "the effects of COVID", the "economy", or whatever, it's just pure, unadulterated, ugly corporate GREED.

I personally all but stopped bothering to add "free" games with my Plus subscription years ago; I always purchase whatever games I'm interested in, and that's provided me with more than enough of a backlog. But I did get a lot of use from the regular Store discounts, and actually the core purpose for renewing my subscription each year has been to keep my game saves backed up in cloud storage (which saved me during at least one console failure). But the cost of this program, coupled with the strong-arm methods Sony is employing to "encourage" users to upgrade (expecting gamers to just bend over and take it yet again like the analogy of a frog in a kettle of water being brought to boil) has me seriously considering letting my existing sub lapse this time around.

Not interested in playing your "game", Sony.

@AtlanteanMan
"folks in the Essential tier literally get treated like we're not worth Sony's interest anymore" -> furthermore is you actually are on a premium subscription, you can not upgrade because is the more expensive, so no discount for you neither

@QuoVadis where in the app are you seeing this? In Canada as well, and my PS+ Premium expires on Nov 28 2023 (1 day after sale ends) and my only option is to extend at $189.99.
All these responses with different people getting different offers, this is wild

@Jswift56 I got 25% discount for staying at Premium from Playstation Store on PC

This happened to me last year!
After having deals on PS Now and OG PS+ they automatically upgraded me to Premium which was nice...until Black Friday when I wanted to get my usual yearly extension but with the 3 tiers I wanted to opt for PS + Extra and not be on Premium and wasn't able to!
So I let it lapse in the new year, and have paid for the odd month of Essential here and there this year. Got a ShopTo PSN card with the discount on it and then got a year of discounted Essential for now...
Really wish they'd change do something with the Tiers so this doesn't happen. Money grabbing. Yet people used to buy 2+ years worth of subs and no longer can.

Greed has no bounds for this charade 🙄🙄

@Buckyooliver this yeah I can't even renew my plus extra for another year, so far it's been so crap smh

Have no reason to upgrade beyond Extra, so this sucks.

@Darude84 Well I guess those are the things you have to do, beg the consumers to buy their inferior offerings. Just like they had to give Activision a better cut just to get their games on XB because they don't sell games on that system, or when a sports teams from a smaller market has to overpay to get stars to come to their team because of their current standing. I will agree though the way they made the sale pricing linked to upgrading the subscription only is pretty *****.