In an exciting announcement, Sony has revealed the release dates for the new and improved PlayStation Plus subscription service. Rather than launching at the same time across all regions, fans can expect a gradual rollout.
The new three-tiered PlayStation Plus service will roll out on the following dates:
- Asia markets (excluding Japan) – targeting May 23, 2022
- Japan – targeting June 1, 2022
- Americas – targeting June 13, 2022
- Europe – targeting June 22, 2022
Sony will also be expanding its cloud streaming access to eleven more European countries: Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Republic of Cyprus, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. These countries will also have access to the Premium tier of PlayStation Plus upon the service’s launch.
With rumors floating around the web for the past year, the upgraded PlayStation Plus service was codenamed “Project Spartacus.” Dubbed a competitor to Microsoft’s Game Pass, more concrete details began emerging in February. Sony officially announced the project at the end of March.
The current PlayStation Plus subscription has been renamed to “PlayStation Plus Essential” and will remain at the same price of $9.99 a month. PlayStation Plus Extra gives gamers access to “up to 400” PlayStation exclusive and third-party titles as well as the original PlayStation Plus benefits for the same $14.99 price point.
PlayStation Plus Premium adds in over 300 more games from previous generations of PlayStation as a mixture of streaming and downloadable titles for $17.99 a month. Premium will also include game trials.
PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan recently discussed the numerous offerings coming to the service upon release but noted that, unlike Xbox Game Pass, 1st and 3rd party games won’t be coming to Plus immediately upon launch.
The PlayStation Plus service was first launched in 2010. As of December 2021, the service had over 48 million subscribers, up from only eight million in 2014. While the PlayStation 5 continues to elude some interested buyers, PlayStation saw its second-largest quarterly revenue ever during the 2021 holiday season at $7.15 billion.
