PlayStation Plus launched a month ago and already it has created a massive split in the PlayStation community, some people love it, some people hate it. The service offers games, exclusive demos and trials and automatic download of patches and firmware for £39.99 a year. This is great for people who want this extra content but other people see it as a waste of money, which is fine, as they might not want the extra content or features. So I asked a couple of StartGame writers to give their opinions on the service.
I think the service is great as it offers extra content for hardcore gamers that want more from their PS3s. Ultimately though, it does come down to the games, demos and betas they offer over the course of the subscription but I’m confident that over the year I will get at least £40 worth of content making the purchase worth while. I am hoping that Sony do add to the service in the future with more PlayStation Plus-only features like the Automatic Download setting. Overall I think that anyone who subscribes to the service will get much more than they have paid for.
With a different view on the service, C_Stewie had this to say:
I can certainly see the upside of PS+. Free games, other discounted content and whole load of other perks certainly add up to an interesting package. On a personal level though, it is not for me. The games currently offered, I already own or I am not interested in and it is for this reason that I won’t bother with it. I already pay for Xbox Live, where there is arguably more on offer and I don’t really want to pay two amounts of money each month on both. If PS+ had launched with some games I was interested in owning they may have got me hooked in, but as it stands I’m just going to keep my eyes peeled and my money in my wallet.
Another person who personally does not want the service is Dexter17:
There is no denying that the prospect of PlayStation Plus is extremely tempting. Free games, free themes, and features such as automatic downloading makes it seem like an unbeatable purchase. However, when I am hovering over the “buy now” button on the store, I just think of one thing. Am I saving money, or am I really losing it? Would I usually buy the games and themes on offer, or would I just scroll through them and not give them a second look? My point is that I don’t buy enough off PSN to warrant the purchase. I wouldn’t usually buy the games on offer, so why would I feel willing to purchase all of them in one package? I can see how PlayStation Plus could be from heaven to the gamers that are really into the content that it is offering, but for me, until a killer game appears on the service PlayStation Plus is a field that I hesitate to venture.
Well those are just a few different opinions on PlayStation Plus, but what is your opinion on the service? Do or don’t you have it?
mynameisblair (75)
wick15 (17)
toutski (14)
Daywalker (13)
gazzagb (12)
The bone of contention with me on this one is that the content you’re getting isn’t free: you’re paying for a subscription and anything purchased for “free” under this subscription is tied to it.
Admittedly I do buy a lot from the store, but paying extra for some games I might get (emphasis on might) and some I probably wouldn’t seems a bit like a scam to me.
A belief of mine is that when you buy something, you own it outright, and this is going further down a murky legal hole than I would like to imagine, and it seems to me a way of fleecing otherwise uninterested gamers.
And automatic downloads of patches and early or exclusive access to betas and demos. Is that really worth forty sheets a year? I don’t think so, so unless Sony are willing to improve on the service by offering more and better incentives, I won’t be buying it.
And the free digital copy of LittleBigPlanet is a nice touch, but I already own it on disc. Perhaps if they offered a disc-based freebie of a selection of say four titles for the year’s subscription, I’d be more inclined to buying it, but digital copies of full retail games are a bit naff, considering I may not have the biggest hard drive in the world, so platter real estate is an important issue for me personally. Can you imagine the size of MGS4 on a hard disk? Exactly.
Most people’s PS3 hard drive wouldn’t even be able to hold MGS4 on this one.
I’m with you on this one too, If I pay for a service where I supposedly get things for free I want to own them and but instead I get a more of a long-period lone. I would much rather pay the extra little bit and know that I can play it whenever I want.
I, like my peers above, would rather pay for things. I actually want and have the physical real deal. I wonder how long until Nintendo try something similar. Hopefully never.