Playstation Plus: Check the new Extra and Premium rates

This is an article from our content partner "PC Games". You can find the original article here.

Already at the beginning of the year, rumors made the rounds that Sony was working on a new online service. There was talk of the codename "Project Spartacus", of a real "Gamepass killer" that would challenge Microsoft's gaming flat rate. The euphoria was correspondingly great when the official announcement followed in March: Yes, the Playstation company does indeed have a new subscription model in the works. Namely, a revised PS Plus.

This will come with some exciting new features in the future. Among other things, there is an extensive game library with over 400 first and third party games for Playstation 4 + 5. On top of that, you can expect a 300-title classic catalog of the PS1, PS2 and PS3 era, PC streaming, time-limited test versions and much more. The service finally launched in Germany on June 23, 2022. We took a look at the launch offer and reveal what you actually get for your money.

The rates

Let's start with the most important point: the rates. The new Playstation Plus is divided into three different levels, which offer you more content, but of course also require a higher fee.

Playstation Plus Essential

We'll start with PS Plus Essential, which is the basic version of the service. It contains exactly what PS Plus subscribers already know from previous years: You get access to online multiplayer to play with other people over the Internet.

On top of that, you get 100 gigabytes of cloud storage to upload your game saves to, exclusive discounts in the Playstation Store, and of course the free games that are available for download every month. The prices also remain the same: 8.99 euros for a monthly membership, 24.99 euros for three months, and 59.99 euros for the whole year.

Playstation Plus Extra

The next step is PS Plus Extra: This level includes a game catalog of about 400 first and third party titles for Playstation 4 and 5, which you can download and play as long as your subscription is still active. Cost: 13.99 euros per month, 39.99 euros per quarter or 99.99 euros per year.

Playstation Plus Premium

The final level is PS Plus Premium. In addition to the content of the two previous plans, it also includes a retro catalog with 340 classic Playstation games, including titles for PS1, PS2, and PSP, which you can either download or stream. There are also various PS3 games to choose from.

However, these are only available via the cloud: on the console and on the PC. The offer is rounded off by time-limited test versions of selected top titles, which you can play before you finally buy them. Sony will then charge 16.99 Euros per month, 49.99 Euros per quarter, or 119.99 Euros per year for this fun.

Upgrade and change

However, you don't have to buy PS Plus from scratch. If you still have a current subscription, you will automatically be upgraded to the new Essential level. It's even more convenient for PS Now customers. Their subscription will even be converted into a PS Plus Premium membership, without any additional costs.

Upgrades between Essential, Extra and Premium are possible at any time. If you want to switch to a higher rate, you only have to pay the difference between your current option and the one of your choice - adjusted to the remaining time, of course. This means that if you have paid for a PS Plus Essential subscription until November 2022, as in our case, you will have to add another 24.66 Euros to be able to use the Premium offer for the remaining 149 days.

The game catalog

Speaking of the offer: At launch, the catalog of available PS4 and PS5 games in the DACH region includes 355 titles. By comparison, Microsoft's Game Pass has 462 titles, but costs a bit more. The games are selected via the PS Plus app on your PlayStation. However, this is not perfectly solved and a bit chaotic. There is no simple overview of the entire library, but four nested submenus, in which the different catalogs are sometimes listed several times, between other PS Plus benefits like Cloud Saves or the free games.

If you only want to see the games for Playstation 1 and 2, you first have to switch to the Collections tab, then scroll past the genre overview and press a corresponding button at the very bottom. There is also the option to view all available games at once and sort them by first letter, release date or platform. However, only PS3, PS4 and PS5 are available as filters here. Some candidates can only be found via the search function. It is particularly painful that there is no favorites list anymore, unlike PS Now.

But enough complaining. Let's take a look at the lineup in detail. Sony had already announced in advance that there would be no big Day One releases as part of PS Plus. The cat adventure Stray will be included in the subscription right at release on July 19, but God of War: Ragnarok will still have to be purchased separately.

Apart from that, the already offered scope is quite impressive, even though the library has been cut by an estimated 240 names compared to PS Now times: You can expect numerous Playstation Studios exclusives, including Marvel's Spider-Man, Ghost of Tsushima, Demon's Souls or Returnal.

In addition, there are well-known blockbusters from third-party providers like Red Dead Redemption 2, Doom and Guardians of the Galaxy. Indie fans will have fun with The Artful Escape, Outer Wilds and co. And to top it off, there is Ubisoft+, including Assassin's Creed or Watch Dogs.

Additional variety is provided by regular library updates, one at the beginning and one in the middle of the month. The number of additions and removals varies each time.

The classics available via PS Plus Premium, on the other hand, look a bit meager: There are currently just 37 games available for PS1, PS2 and PSP. These include real retro gems like Ape Escape or Syphon Filter. But what about Tomb Raider, Silent Hill or Metal Gear, for example?

There would have been more here. The yield of PS3 titles is a bit better: After all, there are 243 games. Among them are some real highlights, such as Castlevania: Lords of Shadow HD, the Devil May Cry HD Collection, Fallout 3 and Resident Evil 4 HD.

The rest of the advertised 300 classics, however, are filled up by various new editions for the PS4: Last of Us Remastered, for example, or the Nathan Drake Collection. That feels a bit cheated. After all, they're not really retro. Rather, it gives the impression that Sony is artificially inflating its offer - even with first-party titles from the past console generation, which should actually be included in PS Plus Extra.

Test versions

Last but not least, we take a look at the time-limited trial versions. You can download them to your hard drive and play them for a certain amount of time.

How long exactly depends on the chosen title. While huge open-world role-playing games like Cyberpunk 2077 or Horizon Forbidden West let you play for five hours, you have to buy the full version of WWE 2K22 after only two hours to continue. In OlliOlli World, the payment barrier even drops after 60 minutes.

At least, all saved game data from the test period is transferred when buying the game. The same applies to the trophies. That is quite practical. Only the pricing of the 15 trial versions is debatable. If you want to add Tiny Tina's Wonderland or Farming Simulator 22 to your library after the trial, you have to pay the full price. The Xbox Game Pass is much more convenient, as you get a 20 percent discount when you buy one of the included titles.

Graphics and performance of the classics

So, enough talk, now let's get down to business: How do the titles in the PS Plus Collection play, especially the classics? The answer: actually the same as back then, only prettier. Most PS1 games come with a higher resolution. On the PS5 they run in 1440p, the PS4 downscales to 1080p. Exceptions are titles like Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee, which are completely based on 2D sprites that couldn't be reworked that easily. Visually, it all looks quite nice in principle, but the upscaling causes some weird flickering here and there.

The frame rate is even more annoying. Sony increasingly relies on PAL versions for the European PS Plus. They come with a suitable synchro, but only with a refresh rate of 50 Hz. Thus, the classics only run with 25 instead of 30 frames per second. This not only makes the movements on the screen look a bit rough, the titles also play noticeably slower than their NTSC counterparts. A problem that already existed in the Playstation Classic console and frustrated back then.

In terms of graphics settings, PS1 games offer three different filters: There is of course the standard mode, then retro-classic, which gives the picture scanlines of an old tube TV, and finally modern, which makes the visuals look a bit more contrasty.

The aspect ratio can also be adjusted. You can choose between the original resolution, 16:9, 1:1, square pixels and zoom. The last three options stretch and compress the image in a strange way. We rather advise the first two menu items.

Speaking of the menu: There is a new user interface for some classics, which offers features like a rewind or a quick save option. Trophies have also been retrofitted into some games. For example, you can now earn a platinum award in Syphon Filter.

Unfortunately, less work has been put into the PS2 games. Here, you are simply presented with the emulated versions that have been available in the PlayStation Store since 2016. They run in 1080p thanks to up-rendering, but otherwise there were unfortunately no revisions. The situation is even worse for the PS3 games. They are exclusively streamed via the cloud, so graphics or performance updates were completely out of the question. So it remains at 720p. Another downer: PS3 games also don't support DLCs.

This might not be too bad for Motorstorm, since you'll only miss out on a few additional tracks and vehicles. With Asura's Wrath, however, things look quite different: Without the expansions, you're missing essential parts of the story, such as the "Untold Chapters", which connect several chapters of the original game in a meaningful way, or the "Real Ending", which publisher Capcom only added two months after the physical release.

Console Streaming

But let's move on to the streaming itself. The same technology is used here as with PS Now. You are connected remotely to a Playstation 3 or Playstation 4, which then runs your game and projects the image onto your TV.

Accordingly, you have to wait up to 30 seconds before starting each session until it has been prepared. If you are idle for too long, you will be kicked out of the session to "make room for other players" on the server. This is quite annoying, because after that you'll have to restart the title and continue from the last automatic save state. There is no kind of "Quick Resume" like on the Xbox Series.

On the other hand, it is new that you can choose one of two options for the picture quality: You will always play at 30 FPS, but now in either 720p or 1080p. That is, if your Internet connection can handle it. Sony generally recommends a speed of at least 5 Mbps, and even 15 Mbps for the best possible experience.

If you are not sure whether your console can actually handle that, an integrated speed test will clarify things: Click on it once and you will get the information whether it is enough for streaming or not shortly after.

By the way, we definitely recommend connecting your console to the Internet via LAN cable. This provides a much more stable gaming experience than via WLAN. This way, even demanding open-world adventures like Marvel's Spider-Man can be enjoyed in all their glory. At least most of the time.

Even under optimal conditions, you are not immune to complications: Even in our review network with at least four to five times the required bandwidth, we repeatedly experienced unattractive compression artifacts and problems with the resolution. Sometimes the picture jerked or froze completely. We also noticed a noticeable input lag. This is of course particularly annoying in multiplayer shooters, where fast reflexes are essential for survival. The PS Plus architecture still seems to be overtaxed when it comes to streaming online matches.

In all fairness: We did not experience a complete disconnection during our test phase. However, we would still recommend it: Enjoy Sony's gaming offer via the hard drive instead of the cloud. After all, games that you have started online can be transferred to the console without any problems and continue playing there.

PC streaming

Alternatively, save games can also be uploaded from the console to the cloud and then continued on the PC via streaming. Of course, the same network connection requirements apply here as on the Playstation. Your computer also has to meet certain hardware requirements.

Sony recommends at least an i3 processor with 2 GHz and 2 GB of RAM. And of course, you'll need a compatible controller. Officially, Sony of course recommends using a Dualshock or Dualsense. However, input devices from third-party manufacturers can also be used without problems. We even got an Xbox gamepad to work as long as no touchpad was required in-game. Unfortunately, control via mouse and keyboard is not possible, except in the menu.

Oh yes, the menu. This is even more confusing in the PS Plus app for the PC. There are neither filters nor a search function, but only lists of different genres and first letters, which you then have to scroll through forever to find the desired title.

Once you have finally managed that, the picture is similar to the one on the console: a solid streaming experience over long stretches, which unfortunately has to struggle with technical hiccups again and again. Sometimes the picture pixels up, sometimes there are display errors, sometimes the entire game falters.

Preliminary conclusion

In the end, the picture of PS Plus Premium is rather sobering. For paying 120 Euros per year, which is twice as much as for the Essential plan, you simply don't get enough value: The classic library is more like a patchwork quilt than a loving retro collection.

Streaming doesn't really work flawlessly. And the test versions are nice, but not a real game changer. Sony will definitely have to do something about this so that the price-performance ratio is right.

The verdict on PS Plus Extra is much more favorable. Especially casual gamers have the opportunity to catch up on a large number of blockbusters for a relatively small surcharge. Whether the membership is still worth it depends on how regularly Sony expands the service with new exciting content.