PlayStation Plus Premiumis better than most give it credit for. For all of the service benefits you will need to cough up £13.49 a month, which grants you access to online functionality, a trio of monthly games, and a library of on-demand games found across PS1, PS2, PS3, PS4, and PS5. Not to mention early access trials, digital discounts, and a few new features that emerge once in a blue moon. But I’m not here to sell you a subscription service, and as a big loser who writes about video games for a living, my perspective on its value is quite warped.
I tend to play new games - blockbusters, indies, and everything in-between - as a part of my job, and thus codes tend to trickle into my inbox or I gain access to things otherwise. This is a dealbreaker when it comes to drawing value from services likePlayStation PlusandXbox Game Pass. I am such a gamer that when it comes to actually browsing their catalogues I’ve already bloody played everything. It’s a ridiculous problem to have, but one I cannot avoid.
Because of this, whenever I have a cheeky browse of either service, my mind tends to swing towards beloved classics instead of worthwhile newcomers. I’ll scroll down in Game Pass till I hit a laundry list of Xbox 360 and original Xbox games, or dip into console exclusives from generations past hoping to find an underappreciated gem that I never touched at the time. It is brilliant for that, and Microsoft has done an excellent job ensuring that its biggest and best games, alongside some forgotten darlings, have been made backward compatible. I can go to my Xbox Series X and jump into Blinx The Time Sweeper in a matter of seconds. Not that I want to, but the fact such an option is available to me in 2024 still astounds me.
PlayStation, meanwhile, still has some catching up to do. This is not to say it hasn’t rolled out loads of classics as a part of its Premium offerings; it’s more to do with how inconsistent some of the titles and features are. PS1 and PSP titles are typically locked behind a more expensive tier, while PS3 titles - at least right now - can only be streamed on the Cloud and require far too many hoops to jump through for a sub-par experience that may end up ruined by an internet outage or slow connection. Ports of PS2 games were already sold and available back on the PS4, so it’s hard to count these as a benefit unique to the service.
The definition used for the ‘classics’ being implemented by PlayStation here is also quite nebulous. It appears to include anything released for the PS3 or earlier, although it does factor in a load of remasters/re-releases too, so it’s flexible. This means the list features things from Limbo to Syphon Filter to Ultra Street Fighter 4 to Dark Chronicle. A bunch of excellent games I’m relieved to see present on a modern platform, but the new additions each month have me both wanting more and curious as to what decision-making process is going on at Sony HQ. For example, January saw titles likeStar Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace and Rally Cross added to the servicealongside HD remasters of some Secrets of Mana and Street Fighter titles. Did they find the files in a drawer somewhere and just do it for a laugh?
Where are actual classics like Vib Ribbon, Vagrant Story, Tenchu, Burnout 3, or SOCOM? It feels that over and over, PlayStation Plus Premium is clutching at classical straws when all of its back catalogue is dripping with quality. But due to not wanting to show its entire hand and make its service obsolete too soon, we are being taken for a ride. That, or we live in such an oversaturated landscape of nostalgia that developers and publishers know that there’s way more money to be made selling these old games to us rather than bundle them in with pricey services.
Or, if you’re Nintendo, the opposite is true, with the virtual console being abandoned in favour of a subscription service which might, if it feels like it, add a GBA game every couple of months. Everything feels inconsistent, or the wrong games are being brought back into a limelight for the wrong reasons, almost at random to help fill up the dwindling ranks. Golden Sun being added to the service in 2024 feels like too little too late, something of that caliber should have been present from the start.
I grew up with PlayStation, and know that once upon a time its exclusive line-up was mostly unbeatable. Much of that legacy remains untouched and entirely absent on PlayStation Plus, when Sony could bring in a sizable number of new members by leaning into its history over waiting for the perfect opportunity to sell everything back to us. Just give me Vib Ribbon and a selection of other bangers complete with trophy support and I’ll be happy. Pretty please?
