PlayStation Plus launches with Essential, Extra, and Premium plans in the US

The The new, more powerful (and more complex) PlayStation Plus Officially in North America as of Monday. The new version of Sony’s subscription service now offers three levels: Basic, Extra, and Premium.

If you’re not familiar with Sony’s new subscription service, you might be wondering: Is this PlayStation version of Xbox’s Game Pass? No, well, sort of. Higher priced tiers offer subscribers a catalog of new and classic games, such as the Xbox service. However, Sony said it has no plans to add new first-party versions to PlayStation Plus on the day it’s released – a major Game Pass feature.

However, even without handing over the day and date of its biggest games, the service does have some potentially great rewards, and each category will appeal to different types of gamers.

PlayStation Plus Essential is the PS Plus version that’s been around for years. Subscribers will get access to monthly games, multiplayer access, discounts, exclusive content, cloud storage, game sharing, PlayStation Plus collection, game assistance, and free PlayStation shipping. As it stands, the month will run players $9.99, and the year $59.99.

The PlayStation Plus Extra ($14.99 per month / $99.99 per year) tier is the basic upgraded version. It comes with all the basic features and just adds a game catalog of 400 first- and third-party PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 titles that subscribers can access — although selections will likely rotate as the months go by.

The PlayStation Plus Premium tier ($17.99 per month / $119.99 per year) is the enhanced version of PlayStation Plus and the most expensive. It comes with all the features in both Essential and Extra. It also adds a catalog of classic PlayStation, PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable games, gaming experiences for certain titles, and PlayStation 3 cloud-streaming games.

For classic game simulation, American gamers get a better deal than other regions. When PlayStation started rolling out the Premium version in Asian regions a few months ago, its classic emulators were running 50Hz versions of the game. However, in North America, titles are said to run at 60Hz versions – which in practice means they’ll run faster for American gamers.

All three different levels exist as of this writing, and players can dive into a file Complete catalog of games They couldn’t get to it before – plus a few surprises that Sony didn’t announce prior to release (like Resident Evil: Cut Out). You can visit PlayStation Plus website for a full list In our catalog of PlayStation Plus games, demos, and classics.