Sony has officially decided to increase its PlayStation Plus
membership fees and this change will take place on September 22nd,
2016. Current users have little under a month left before the changes will be
implemented. I guess this is both a good AND bad thing.
The bad news is obviously, that the PlayStation Plus prices
have been increased.
How much will the PlayStation Plus membership prices be
increased by?
The new membership prices will be increased by:
The new membership prices will be increased by:
$10 increase for one year – From $49.99 to $59.99
$7 increase for three months – From $17.99 to $24.99
$0 increase for one month membership – Prices remain at
$9.99
The prices mentioned above are in USD. Sadly things get even
worse for Canadian gamers, as the PlayStation Plus prices have been increased
EVEN more to reflect the difference in dollar value.
How much will the new PlayStation Plus membership prices
increase in Canadian Dollars?
$20 CAD increase for one year – From $49.99 to $69.99
$20 CAD increase for one year – From $49.99 to $69.99
$12 CAD increase for three months – From $17.99 to $29.99
$2 CAD increase for one month – From $9.99 to $11.99
I don’t know about you guys but as a fellow Canadian this feels
like a double Whammy. I completely understand the NEED to increase the prices
due to growing network costs. But if you look at it per month, since I get my
PlayStation Plus one year membership slightly discounted at $45 I pay around $3.75
a month. Even with a price increase of $59.99, if you could get them discounted
at $55 that would be around $4.60 a month. This means that the price of
PlayStation Plus had risen to little under a dollar.
This would be perfectly fine with me as the prices of
PlayStation Plus membership had not reason in 5+ years since its release in
2010, at least in North America. The PlayStation Plus prices were previously
increased in countries such as Russia and India in 2014 and more recently in
the UK in 2015, so you could technically say that North America was due for a
PlayStation price hike sometime soon.
The real problem arises for Canadians who have to pay
$69.99 for the yearly PlayStation Plus membership. Even if you could get a yearly membership discounted at $65, the per
month cost would be $5.41 which is only an increase of close to $2 (roughly
$1.75) per month. One might even argue that even though it's almost double the
increase compared to USD but it’s still not that much.
That $0.75 increase might not seem to be a big deal but it
might just be the tipping point for some PlayStation users who are currently
unhappy or on the fence with the PlayStation service. At those membership prices, a switch to XBOX seems even
more enticing.
There was already growing complaints about the free games
offered to PlayStation Plus monthly subscribers and how they were sub-par to
Microsoft’s offerings. If Canadians are forced to pay $65 - $70 for PlayStation
membership why not opt to switch to XBOX for a cheaper monthly price but also
better bang for buck?
Which brings me to the all-important question of WHY? Why
did Sony need to increase the prices but more importantly double the increase
for Canadians? Were they really hard up for cash due to growing network costs?
Are they increasing it so they can offer PlayStation Plus members better
monthly game deals and more AAA titles? I think only Sony themselves can answer
those questions
.
The slight good news in all of this is there is still about a
month left and users can take advantage of this time to stock up on a few years’
worth of PlayStation Plus membership at current or even more discounted prices.
As I play online quite a bit, I better head off and try to
find some PlayStation Plus deals. Let me know what you guys think of the price
increase and also if you find some discounts as well :)
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