Is the Playstation Plus Price Increase Justified?

Paying to play online games on your home consoles have been around since online gaming became more modern and accessible. Sony started off by adding a paid subscription as an option to receive better deals and benefits, but as time went on and the new console generation graced our living rooms, Sony’s paid subscriptions -Playstation Plus – became mandatory, and recently they’ve become even more expensive.

The $10 price hike comes with plenty of outrage and discomfort from Sony fans everywhere. Marking the first time the cost has gone up – officially now all around the globe – Sony states in a Polygon interview that the extra cost is to “reflect various market conditions”, in turn helping to add a more extensive experience.

With additional features like monthly sales on a variety of games, downloadable content, including even a handful of free titles that change every month, as well as the ability to enjoy the online content that many games have to offer, Sony is trying to give players a worthy investment. Other subscriptions to various applications are also available like the game streaming service Playstation Now, but do customers really want multiple subscriptions to enjoy their pricey piece of entertainment hardware?

An obvious tactic to help customers latch on to the news of a price increase is to give players more bang for their buck. With a similar price hike last year for US customers, and now it seems the rest of the gaming world is following suit, Sony needs to keep their dedicated fan base just that. Dedicated. Monthly sales and mostly sub-par free titles will only take them so far before the expensive investment becomes stale. Offering free subscriptions to various applications featured on the Playstation 4, money vouchers or redeemable game codes of your choice are other various options that could potentially help set appropriate standards for the costly online feature.

With the rise in cost of online gaming, should games and consoles continue to grow in price? What good is the game or console if you can’t use it to its full advantage, unless, of course, you fork over more and more valuable income? Only the future of gaming holds these answers, and for now we must take the blows and hope these companies we rely on for hours of entertainment a day have the customers best interest and overall experience in mind.