Sony - PlayStation Plus 12-Month Membership

The card itself is 5-star because it's the best way, IMO, to get a PS Plus subscription. It's way cheaper than month-to-month and doesn't require giving Playstation your card information. I see that it's only $40 on Black Friday, as opposed to the usual $60, so that's definitely the time to stock up. The three stars is for PS Plus itself. Personally, I have little to no interest in online multiplayer, and I don't really *need* the online save backup, so my primary reason for getting it is for the "free" games. What they don't make very clear is that these games aren't really free. They're loans, which means you don't own them. If you let your PS Plus subscription lapse, you no longer have access to them. Calling them "free" implies they're *giving* them to you, which isn't the case. It's a free loan, that's all. I think that needs to be clearer up front. Also, the games have been pretty unimpressive to me so far. I've had it for about 6 months now, and I think I've played to completion only two of the games we've gotten access to in that time. I tried a couple others and got bored with them before finishing, and most of the other games I wasn't even interested enough in to try. What's annoying is that when people complain about the bad game selection online, other people come in and rag on them for complaining about free games, claiming that what we're paying for is the online aspect so the games we get are just gravy that we should be grateful for no matter what games they are. Except this isn't true for a lot of us. The "free" games are kind of the main thing I'm in this for, so when they give us games I have zero interest in (and which often times are universally known to be terrible), I think we have a right to complain about not getting value for our money. So that's my main gripe with PS Plus. (It's also worth noting that currently they give "free" games for PS4, PS3, and Vita, but soon they will be cutting the PS3 and Vita games, which means no extra games for PS4 due to cross play, and there's no indication that they plan to replace those games with more PS4 games. So instead of 6 games a month, they're going to be offering only 2 games a month, and yet they're not changing the price of subscription despite decreasing the offered content by 66%.) Although I will mention that PS Plus gives you additional discounts on the PS store in the case of many/most sales, so if you buy or plan to buy a lot of digital games, it might be worth it in the long run to buy it as basically a discount card. But you'd have to see if you think $60 is more or less than you'd save on such purchases. I wasn't planning on re-upping this when it ran out, since I don't think the content is worth $60, but now that it's $40 on Black Friday, I'll probably try to get it at that price.

Every month, Sony gives away digital copies of at least two games (two on PS4, two on PS3 and two on Vita, with some of those being available on multiple platforms) to PlayStation Plus subscribers. Typically, the two most expensive games being offered are worth more than the price of an annual membership. It can be a bit of a gamble, but at the very least, I'd recommend keeping an eye on the rotating lineup and picking up a membership when some games you would otherwise pay the same price for are being offered. Keep in mind that free games are only available as long as you're a member, so if you let your membership expire, those games will essentially be 'locked.' However, PlayStation Plus also offers you a further discount when games go on sale, and anything purchased with a Plus discount is permanently tied to your account. I don't think I can recommend this enough.

I've been using PlayStation Plus since 2013, and I've always been happy with the service that it's provided. Getting the Free Monthly Games, and the increased Cloud Storage for saved games is really nice. The added benefit of membership is that PS Plus members can get an additional cost saving during special sales throughout the year too. The 12-month membership is the best deal too, because it's about half of the monthly subscription cost. If you're a gamer on the PlayStation, this is a must-have purchase. This is especially true for any game that requires online multiplayer, as the service is a requirement for some online gaming titles. I'm very happy with my purchase, and I definitely recommend it. Two thumbs up!

IMO this is a good option if you want to join PSplus either for playing online or for the perks of the plus membership, you pay more if you do it per month so it's best just to get the year subscription and save some cash. With the PS card at bestbuy you don't have to release your credit card info to the PS network if you're careful about that. Warning: I joined because of both, I do some online gaming but also like to download and get free games, but this year I didn't pay around 4 months which means you’re not a member anymore, the games you downloaded when you were a member are not available until you subscribe again (pay), so beware the "free games" are only free as long as you remain a member.

Ok obviously I give this 5 stars not only because if you decide to join the PlaySation family with number 4 this is an absolute necessity to purchase along with your PlayStation 4 console and your games and any accessories. That's because with PlayStation 4 Sony is doing the Xbox approach basically made it so that if you want to use online multiplayer in most games (with the exception of free to play and games with monthly subscriptions like Final Fantasy XIV) Basically they adopted the Xbox approach. Because this is the equivalent of an Xbox Live Gold Membership. Also however besides the necessity there are perks to being a member like cloud storage save data, auto-downloads for patches and most importantly just like Xbox (don't ask which one did this first I have no clue) two free games a month exclusive for PlayStation Plusemembers and and after download it's yours forever as long as you maintain your plus membership. So just get this.

IMO this is a good option if you want to join PSplus either for playing online or for the perks of the plus membership, you pay more if you do it per month so it's best just to get the year subscription and save some cash. With the PS card at bestbuy you don't have to release your credit card info to the PS network if you're careful about that. Warning: I joined because of both, I do some online gaming but also like to download and get free games, but this year I didn't pay around 4 months which means you’re not a member anymore, the games you downloaded when you were a member are not available until you subscribe again, so beware the "free games" are only free as long as you remain a member.

Sony requires a paid subscription for online content, which is sort of... eh, but a bane of the modern console era. Like Microsoft, the best price is $60 a year, with the privileges given from it. PlayStation Plus offers exclusive deals and free games (mostly AAA titles, which is fun), which make the price a lot more bearable. My first month I was given XCOM 2 and Black Ops 3, which is neat since I was likely never going to buy them, but I get a free digital copy. Remember though, these are only accessible as long as you keep the subscription. I got mine on sale during the Days of Play E3 sale, which bumped the price down to $50, which was more palatable. If you like playing online with friends, and like the allure of a free game each month, its worthwhile.

Overall, the big benefit to PlayStation Plus is the ability to play online multiplayer games. PS Plus is absolutely worth it if you want to play multiplayer games on your PlayStation 4. Paying for this feature is now pretty standard. Microsoft’s Xbox Live Gold pioneered charging for online multiplayer with the Xbox 360, and Sony’s PS Plus now costs the exact same amount of money as Microsoft’s Xbox Live. Even Nintendo will soon begin charging a subscription fee for online multiplayer on the Nintendo Switch. Every game console has started charging for online multiplayer, so the only way to play online games for free is to switch to a PC—or stick with a PlayStation 3.