In August, Sony announced a substantial increase in its PlayStation Plus prices that began in September. The price increase saw the base subscription jump from $59.99 per year to $79.99 while the highest tier, PlayStation Plus Premium, rose from $119.99 to $159.99.
It was a move that wasn’t received positively by PlayStation owners at the time, and still hasn’t been seen as a positive. Now, nearly two months after the increase, Sony is attempting to defend the price increase.
In an interview with Barron’s, PlayStation senior vice president Eric Lempel tried to justify the price increases to the service, blaming it on “market conditions”.
“We want to make PlayStation Plus great,” he said. “With our reboot last year and introducing the tier system, a lot of consumers have recognized that there’s a lot of value in PlayStation 5.”
He continued: “Like practically everything else in the world, we have to look at our pricing and we have to adjust to market conditions. I’m happy to say, unlike a lot of other subscription services out there, we haven’t touched the PlayStation Plus pricing for 85% of the world in many years. So, this was the first time we did something there.“
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A Promise For Improvement
When announcing the up to 33% price increase to PlayStation Plus, Sony said that the adjustment would allow them to “continue bringing high-quality games and value-added benefits to your PlayStation Plus subscription service.”
Despite that promise, Sony still doesn’t have plans to add new games on day one to the service.
“It comes down to what you’re going to get in the service in terms of the type of game and the quality of games,” Lempel said. “I can’t comment on what the competition is doing. But with us, we feel we’re offering a great curated catalog of games, as well as other features and services with PlayStation Plus.
“Also, we give you the options with the three tiers to engage as much or as little as you want, depending on what you’d like to do.”
Have you renewed your PlayStation Plus membership since the price increase or are you planning to cancel? For more Insider Gaming, check out when the original Fortnite map is coming back to the game.
