Beginning next week, the PlayStation Plus service will see a price increase for 12-month subscriptions.
In its newest PlayStation Blog, Sony revealed that starting September 6, yearly memberships across all three tiers will increase by 33-35 percent. The Essential tier’s 12-month pricing will go from $60 to $80, Extra’s from $100 to $135, and Premium’s from $120 to $160.
This price change will be enacted globally, and the blog post features the updated pricing converted for Europe, the UK, and Japan. Notably, no such hike was mentioned for the one or three-month periods of any PlayStation Plus tier.
For those already in 12-month subscriptions for any tier, the new pricing won’t go into effect until the renewal date hits on or after November 6. Sony also noted that upgrading or downgrading to another tier on or after September 6 will be reflected in the new prices.
At the time of writing, it’s unclear if Sony will release new physical subscription cards with the updated pricing.
PlayStation Plus is the newest member of the price hike club
Bumping up the price of PlayStation Plus comes not long after Xbox did a price hike for Xbox Game Pass earlier in the summer. Those changes were considerably smaller (an extra dollar or two, depending on the tier) and, at the time, were enacted to “reflect the competitive conditions in each market.”
Even outside of PS Plus, Sony is no stranger to bumping up the price of its PlayStation products. Last year, it jacked up the PlayStation 5’s price in several international markets, such as Japan and Europe, in response to supply chain issues.
Throughout the back half of 2022 and much of 2023, there’ve been several price bumps for DLC, season passes, and VR hardware. Despite an occasional price drop (temporary or permanent), there’s been a larger trend of prices going up in both games and other media, and that trend appears to be sticking around for the near future.