Playstation Deals, PS Plus games, and Discussion

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Thanks to Frisky for all of the hard work that he put in for the previous deals threads!

Feel free to post here about the newest Playstation deals, PS Plus games, and discussions about the previously mentioned items.

Official PlayStation™Store US

March 2024 games (available on March 5th):

PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium | Game Catalog

March 2024 games (available on March 19th):

PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium | Game Catalog
PlayStation Premium | Classics
 
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Why do you really like it? Your last paragraph explains that the combination of the two services forces you to have both services to get the same prices you're paying now a la carte. Both services are currently $5/month at the annual rate. That's before you can shop around for discounts. PS Now was often on sale for $45/year and as low as $30/year. PS+ ranged from $25-40 a year. It's unlikely that the new combination will go on sale down to $70-80 annually, but maybe it could.
The reason I like it is because: more games and (probably) better games. I like PS Now but have been hoping they'd beef up the library a little bit, so this is basically that hope coming true.

I was going to keep subscribing to PS+ & PS Now even without the change, so for me the result ends up being "have more games in the library and probably pay some more for it." Hopefully only a little more and not a lot more...

 
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There are only a few games that I'd want to play from the PS3 (Folklore, actually, that might be it).
I don't know if it would be worth paying a subscription for that.
I would just like to buy a few digital PS2 games, even PSP/Vita games, and download and just play them when I want without a subscription.


On a unrelated note, Best Buy is selling PS5's but only if you have their Totaltech $200/yr subscription.
Everybody wants subscriptions now...I hate them.


Surprised I didn't get 100 tweets about the ps5 in stock. Been a while sense bestbuy had it in stock.
 
So if you are dumb like me and only have PS+ right now for a few more years, what should I do if I want to upgrade? Wait until June? Get PSNOW before June?  

I guess I am trying to make sure this isn't one of these Game Pass Ultimate things where its better to load up beforehand. 

 
Has it been confirmed if the PS4 will be able to download / natively run PS1, PS2, and PSP games? Or will that be exclusive to PS5? 

The answer to that question will determine my level of interest since I don't have a PS5 and probably won't even try for one until the inevitable slim model mid-cycle refresh.

 
An advantage (over GamePass, etc.) that maybe people don't know about is that you can share the games in PS+/PSNow subscriptions to another PS5/4 in your household, just as you can with digital purchases.  Really great feature if you have kids, because you can even play the games online together- none of the "only one person can play games in the library at a time" stuff that Steam does.

 
Everybody's Golf will lose its online component on 9/30:

https://www.gematsu.com/2022/03/everybodys-golf-online-servers-to-shut-down-on-september-30

Starting October 1, the following functionality will no longer be available:
  • Open Course selection.
  • Participation in International Tournaments.
  • Turf War.
  • Checking the latest Daily Ranking.
  • Checking the latest Copy Ranking.
  • Partial viewing of the Notice Box.
  • Partial browsing of This Month’s Items.
  • Partial browsing of Last Month’s Items.
  • Purchase and use of Warp Medals.
  • Acquisition of some items related to fishing.
  • Reporting of players.
  • Viewing of latest Profile Card plus number of times copied.
  • Partial browsing of the Library.
  • Acquisition of the Platinum Trophy “Push it to the Limit!”
  • Acquisition of the Gold Trophy “Walking Encyclopaedia.”
  • Acquisition of the Bronze Trophy “Online Debut.”
 
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Has it been confirmed if the PS4 will be able to download / natively run PS1, PS2, and PSP games? Or will that be exclusive to PS5?

The answer to that question will determine my level of interest since I don't have a PS5 and probably won't even try for one until the inevitable slim model mid-cycle refresh.
It's for PS4 and PS5.
 
I will need more info or to see how it all plays out when it launches. Some of the big games like God of War, Spider-Man and Returnal being on there are awesome but is that day one when it launches? I think by now that many of us own those games already but it's cool for those that do not have them. I play game pass games a lot but there have been no announcements that this service will provide Day One releases like Game Pass does.

It's fine if Sony does not want to directly compete with game pass but that is one huge advantage Game Pass has. You also can download every game if you want to. It's a shame that you can't do that with every game that Sony offers. I was able to get three years of GPU for $92 with deals on gold and then upgrading for $1. That is an amazing deal and I am sure there will be deals to look out for in order to get Sony's service for cheaper. Right now I am taking the wait-and-see approach.
 
So the monthly prices are a joke, but that's always been the case for Plus and even Xbox Gold.
Like Frisky said, the annual rate is where the value is at. As much as being forced to sub yearly sucks, at least it's the same price as the yearly subs to both Plus and Now combined despite the added value.

It looks like the changes are:
PS Now subscriptions now require a PS Plus subscription (lame)
PS Now is now split into two-tiers, a download-tier (like Game Pass) and a download + streaming tier (like GPU including both Game Pass & Xcloud)
As a result of its benefits not only being paywalled behind PS Plus but split among two tiers, current PS Now subs are being converted 1:1 to the highest tier in order to avoid any legal complications.
Both PS Now tiers are getting better PS4/PS5 games.
The highest tier (which exclusively has PS3 game access by default since those titles are streaming-only) is getting more retro stuff (PS1, PS2, PSP) for both download and streaming.
The highest-tier is reinstating the old Plus benefit of full-game trials.

My only question is what games will be leaving the service between now and June? I swear they have more than 400 PS4 games on there already, and close to 340 PS3 games.
 
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Double post, but those of you with long PS Plus subs will be shifted 1:1 to the basic-tier for the duration of your previously existing subscription. As for what the upgrade process could be, it could be a separate subscription that you pay for per month/annually, or they could do the lazy/cheaper way and do a conversion based on the value of banked subscription time.
Of course, the most messy part would be for those with both subs with different end dates. Since PS Now is being upgraded to the highest-tier 1:1 by default, does that mean your Plus time is automatically converted into extending that tier of subscription or will it just downgrade to the Basic tier after the Now conversion ends?
They really should have had the details more hammered out but I imagine they are still deciding and trying to prevent people from gaming it ahead of time (like how they killed the ability to get PS Now annual subs far in advance to prevent people from stocking up for the 1:1 conversion).
Clever to announce this now knowing people will be too distracted by the subscription changes to give it much thought.
Please give me Parasite Eve on my PS5 and I will be happy.
I'd say it's pretty likely that the PS1 games currently available for purchase for PS3/Vita are the ones that would be added (outside of stuff with other ports or remasters like the Final Fantasy or Mega Man X series).
 
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Double post, but those of you with long PS Plus subs will be shifted 1:1 to the basic-tier for the duration of your previously existing subscription. As for what the upgrade process could be, it could be a separate subscription that you pay for per month/annually, or they could do the lazy/cheaper way and do a conversion based on the value of banked subscription time.
Of course, the most messy part would be for those with both subs with different end dates. Since PS Now is being upgraded to the highest-tier 1:1 by default, does that mean your Plus time is automatically converted into extending that tier of subscription or will it just downgrade to the Basic tier after the Now conversion ends?
They really should have had the details more hammered out but I imagine they are still deciding and trying to prevent people from gaming it ahead of time (like how they killed the ability to get PS Now annual subs far in advance to prevent people from stocking up for the 1:1 conversion).
Clever to announce this now knowing people will be too distracted by the subscription changes to give it much thought.
I'd say it's pretty likely that the PS1 games currently available for purchase for PS3/Vita are the ones that would be added (outside of stuff with other ports or remasters like the Final Fantasy or Mega Man X series).
For those who have purchased multiple years of PS+ (like myself), I hope there is an easy way to upgrade to the Premium tier and pay the difference for the years remaining on the existing sub.

 
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For those who have purchased multiple years of PS+ (like myself), I hope there is an easy way to upgrade to the Premium tier and pay the difference for the years remaining on the existing sub.
That would be ideal, but I have a feeling they'll do the conversion method based on the calculated value of remaining subscription time.
Nintendo went that direction recently with the Switch Online Expansion Pass and MS also does it with GPU (but in a very generous way, for now).
 
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That would be ideal, but I have a feeling they'll do the conversion method based on the calculated value of remaining subscription time.
Nintendo went that direction recently with the Switch Online Expansion Pass and MS also does it with GPU (but in a very generous way, for now).
OR refund me those 4 years I have and then let me put it towards the Premium sub lol

 
I'd say it's pretty likely that the PS1 games currently available for purchase for PS3/Vita are the ones that would be added (outside of stuff with other ports or remasters like the Final Fantasy or Mega Man X series).
Wonder what that means for people who purchased them outright

 
I do have to say that being able to play Suikoden I and II on my PS5 would be pretty fun.  

I already own them on the PS3 and Vita, but that would be an awesome thing to have access to them before Eiuyden Chronicles comes out.  

 
That's a very good question.
On the one hand, ownership of PS3 games made no difference when it came to PS Now, but given that streaming was exclusively limited to PS Now functionality, it was redundant except in cases where your purchased PS3 game was not already on the service (can be argued that the ability to stream games required a separate negotiation per title).
But with the PS1/PSP/PS2 games allowing for downloads, that could change the equation.
The ability to stream games will still be limited to the PS Now catalog and locked behind a subscription-tier (Xcloud is similarly limited to Game Pass titles and subscription dependent) but it's possible downloads could be allowed outside the subscription if retro games are made available for purchase. Then you have to wonder if PS3/PSP/Vita purchases would carry over or if you would have to buy them again a la PS2 games on PS4/PS5.
Ultimately, it depends on how much inspiration they take from Nintendo's approach to legacy titles vs. Microsoft's.
OR refund me those 4 years I have and then let me put it towards the Premium sub lol
That's more or less what the conversion process is, refunding you the value of your remaining days (for example, I think the value of every day for the original Switch online sub was calculated to be like 9 cents?) putting that money towards the cost of the sub and then charging you the difference.
 
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An advantage (over GamePass, etc.) that maybe people don't know about is that you can share the games in PS+/PSNow subscriptions to another PS5/4 in your household, just as you can with digital purchases. Really great feature if you have kids, because you can even play the games online together- none of the "only one person can play games in the library at a time" stuff that Steam does.
Isn't this the case with Xbox and GamePass as well where you can set one console as the "Home" console and share your games with your friends ?

 
That architecture is incredibly complicated to emulate. PC's still struggle greatly with getting PS3 games working that way, I would think the PS5 would have similar problems. Streaming is just the best solution for now. It's not the optimal one, just the best available one.
This notion that PS3 is overly complicated to emulate simply needs to die or are we going to keep pretending that we need a rosetta stone to crack the code of 20 year old hardware? Both PS3 and Xbox 360 were built on IBM's PowerPC architecture. Difference is that Sony would rather sell you games for $70+ dollars instead of let you play your old games. Jim Ryan claiming that no one cares about old games was always a farse. Microsoft invested real money into building an emulator and a backwards compatible team. Almost like a mini development studio if you will. Each xbox 360 game had to be played from start to finish to ensure that it was compatible. There was no easy solution or switch they could turn on to make every game work. It took manpower and ingenuity as well as passion and drive.

Many of those 360 games received auto HDR, resolution and framerate boosts making them look like modern day remasters, all without costing a single cent to the consumer. Not the case with PS1, PS2, PS3 games where 20 year old games look 20 years old lol. Would you love to play Sly Cooper, Jax and Daxter, etc... in 4k? Yes please!

Naughty Dog created an absolute masterpiece with The Last of US for PS3. If anyone knows how the PS3 works it's Sony. Instead of a bunch of ragtag developers that work on a PC emulator as a hobby in their spare time without any financial incentive. Does this look like PC has any trouble running PS3 games? Get ready to drool...

https://youtu.be/Qw5wvug-Qb8

https://youtu.be/ljJ8DKEy69c

 
100% with you

That game was so amazing when it came out and the gun building still holds up. A remake would be awesome, or hell even an HD remaster of 1 and 2 would be awesome.
Yeah! I have not played the game in years, but the gun building was one of the first things I thought of when you mentioned the game. I think I still have it on my PSP, makes me want to go charge it up and load up the game, lol.

...well maybe not, Elden Ring has a pretty good grip on me right now. :)

 
My backlog is much to large to even consider this new tier. The PS+ games will probably continue to be meh too. No reason to offer day 1 indies or old 1st party games when those can be used to get people on the higher tier.

 
This notion that PS3 is overly complicated to emulate simply needs to die or are we going to keep pretending that we need a rosetta stone to crack the code of 20 year old hardware? Both PS3 and Xbox 360 were built on IBM's PowerPC architecture.
Did you even watched the bottom video you just posted? What sad is that the video you posted basically confirmed that you don't have a clue about what your talking about, and this was in the first minute too. He also mentioned that he has another video about PS3 system architecture and difficulties of it.
 
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 As someone who worked on PS3 titles back when the system was current, that shit was not easy to work with and I can only imagine emulation being a major pain in the ass.  The 360 was fucking cake to work on when you compared both consoles side by side.

 
This notion that PS3 is overly complicated to emulate simply needs to die or are we going to keep pretending that we need a rosetta stone to crack the code of 20 year old hardware? Both PS3 and Xbox 360 were built on IBM's PowerPC architecture. Difference is that Sony would rather sell you games for $70+ dollars instead of let you play your old games. Jim Ryan claiming that no one cares about old games was always a farse.
I don't really think it's a farce when you're talking about sales. PS3 allowed for buying many many PS1 classics and the sales on those must've not been very good if they didnt bother bring them over to PS4 when PS1 emulation is very easy. It's easy to say its because they just want to sell you a 70$ remake but the reality is the majority of the old games that don't have backwards compat aren't get remade. They just have the data that shows people aren't going to actually buy them and so the effort to do it isn't worth it.
I personally would prefer they fix their backwards compatibility problem as I love a lot of ps3 games and don't like hooking up my PS3. But if Sony really thought that it would make them a lot of money I'm sure they would be doing it.
 
Did you even watched the bottom video you just posted? What sad is that the video you posted basically confirmed that you don't have a clue about what your talking about, and this was in the first minute too. He also mentioned that he has another video about PS3 system architecture and difficulties of it.
People who don't know how to do something think it can be done? It's 20-year-old hardware and is based on the same architecture that 360 uses!
 
The PS3 is a lot more complicated than "just the IBM power PC" architecture. To develop well for it you need to know how to design your software to take advantage of the cell processor's oddities. I don't want to get bogged down in the technical details, but basically it's really hard and requires you to think about programming in a very different way. This is why RPCS3 isn't that great. It still can't run Metal Gear Solid 4 effectively after like 5+ years of development. I have tried everything and it's a nightmare.

 
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Both PS3 and Xbox 360 were built on IBM's PowerPC architecture.
It's 20-year-old hardware and is based on the same architecture that 360 uses!
The both of you need to stop talking out of your asses. Yes, the PS3 included one PowerPC core. No, that did not make its architecture remotely similar to the 360's design. Go read up on the DETAILS of each system overall and see if you can actually understand what's going on there. In the meanwhile, and afterwards, just stop talking.

 
For what its worth on my PS5 I was able to buy 1 year of PSNow for $59.99, it says good until 3/29/23 and I turned off auto renew.  I could not add more years, it gives an error when you try.

I already have 4-5 years of PS+ so it'll be interesting to see what happens in June when they flip on the new tiers.  Allegedly if you are currently PSNow you will be converted to the highest new tier ($120/yr) but they also said people who have PS+ will stay on PS+, so those two statements kinda conflict.  

I'm sure theres a chance I'll get screwed but I'm lazy enough to know Sony will eventually fix it, if they somehow convert my 5 years into 1 year or something like that. 

It hurts paying actual MSRP for any of these things but I browsed a few games on PSNOw (never subbed before, not even trial) and saw Infamous 1 & 2 and GTA Vice City (remaster) and Shadow Warrior 3 (download/ps5), I'd like to play all of those so hey its sorta worth $60 and I assume it'll even get better in June.

1 year PSNow sub cards have been yanked from amazon, best buy, gamestop, walmart, target, etc so not really sure where you could buy more codes or if they will even work.

 
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The both of you need to stop talking out of your asses. Yes, the PS3 included one PowerPC core. No, that did not make its architecture remotely similar to the 360's design. Go read up on the DETAILS of each system overall and see if you can actually understand what's going on there. In the meanwhile, and afterwards, just stop talking.
You missed the sarcasm in my post. Why did you ignore the first part and take it out?
 
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Did you even watched the bottom video you just posted? What sad is that the video you posted basically confirmed that you don't have a clue about what your talking about, and this was in the first minute too. He also mentioned that he has another video about PS3 system architecture and difficulties of it.
I never said that it wouldn't be hard, just that it's not impossible. Backwards compatibility was a conscious design philosophy with both the PS2 and PS3 including on board hardware to make them backwards compatible. Remember the emotion chip? Something that changed when the PS4 was released.

Xbox One was custom built with backwards compatibility in mind. Even then each back compatible game proposed a unique challenge often requiring out of the box thinking and voodoo magic, not surprising when you're trying to get a game built for PowerPC to run on x86 architecture. And if PS3 is so impossible to emulate then the developers of RPCS3 who work on this in their spare time without any advantage of the source code must be considered heroes with 1000+ IQ.

Bottom line is that Sony did not want to spend the money to make PS3 backwards compatible. It was a cost benefit ratio. That's it.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2017-xbox-one-x-back-compat-how-does-it-actually-work

Helping the task immensely is the fact that certain aspects of the Xbox 360 hardware design are indeed built into the Xbox One processor - specifically, support for texture formats and audio. "It's what makes this sort of possible for us, because then we can take all of those shaders that we collect and we can package them and all the Enlightenments, and then we just go through and we do actual performance playthroughs to determine that the emulator is executing everything right."

It's not an easy task because fundamentally, the Xbox 360's PowerPC processor is worlds apart from Xbox One's x86 foundation. Floating point calculations need to be adapted from 40-bit to 32-bit, with potential implications for aspects like collision detection, but Microsoft's aim here is clear - to be able to host game code on their virtualised Xbox 360 and for it to run as close as possible to original hardware.

 
I don't really think it's a farce when you're talking about sales. PS3 allowed for buying many many PS1 classics and the sales on those must've not been very good if they didnt bother bring them over to PS4 when PS1 emulation is very easy. It's easy to say its because they just want to sell you a 70$ remake but the reality is the majority of the old games that don't have backwards compat aren't get remade. They just have the data that shows people aren't going to actually buy them and so the effort to do it isn't worth it.
I personally would prefer they fix their backwards compatibility problem as I love a lot of ps3 games and don't like hooking up my PS3. But if Sony really thought that it would make them a lot of money I'm sure they would be doing it.
That's the problem. Sony didn't think that backwards compatibility was worth it financially. If they did, they would have done it.

The PS3 is a lot more complicated than "just the IBM power PC" architecture. To develop well for it you need to know how to design your software to take advantage of the cell processor's oddities. I don't want to get bogged down in the technical details, but basically it's really hard and requires you to think about programming in a very different way. This is why RPCS3 isn't that great. It still can't run Metal Gear Solid 4 effectively after like 5+ years of development. I have tried everything and it's a nightmare.
Xbox had an entire team dedicated to working full time on backwards compatibility for an entire generation. That cost time and money.

With what RPCS3 was able to accomplish in their spare time imagine what a dedicated team of Sony employees aided by Mark Cerny could have accomplished if they wanted? Look at the graphical difference between Uncharted 1 vs The Last of Us? The hardware did not change, that improvement came simply from better understanding of the hardware.

The both of you need to stop talking out of your asses. Yes, the PS3 included one PowerPC core. No, that did not make its architecture remotely similar to the 360's design. Go read up on the DETAILS of each system overall and see if you can actually understand what's going on there. In the meanwhile, and afterwards, just stop talking.
Did somebody hurt your feelings?

 
That's the problem. Sony didn't think that backwards compatibility was worth it financially. If they did, they would have done it.

Xbox had an entire team dedicated to working full time on backwards compatibility for an entire generation. That cost time and money.

With what RPCS3 was able to accomplish in their spare time imagine what a dedicated team of Sony employees aided by Mark Cerny could have accomplished if they wanted? Look at the graphical difference between Uncharted 1 vs The Last of Us? The hardware did not change, that improvement came simply from better understanding of the hardware.
I don't disagree that it's a technical hurdle that is capable of being overcome, but it is definitely more of a technical hurdle than xbox 360 was for backpat. You're just wrong about that. The 360 uses a development paradigm that is very similar to making PC games. The PS3 does not. It fundamentally required a different set of programming skills to do well that doesn't translate to x86 very well. That difference is why Sony hasn't pursued it. I still think they should--we actually agree. But you're just factually wrong about some things.

RPCS3 sucks, even now. And if you haven't used it, you don't know how much of a pain in the ass it is. Trust me, RPCS3 is *really* not at all user friendly and has a lot of problems, because it's attempting to solve a very difficult problem.

 
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With what RPCS3 was able to accomplish in their spare time imagine what a dedicated team of Sony employees aided by Mark Cerny could have accomplished if they wanted?
I don't know. Mark Cerny lied about the whole "copying" thing. I had a 200mb update for a game the other day that finished in seconds while the copying phase took 17 minutes. (On PS5 btw)

 
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Hopefully they don't do anything stupid with plus. Though if they did try to discontinue it as a standalone sub they'd probably get sued. Not that they offer as good stuff with plus as they used to. I miss the double discount sales and multiple games many being multiplat they used to do.
 
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BC is cool but people act like it actually matters to the general video game playing public and it doesn't. There is a reason that Xbox stopped adding more titles and it's because somebody finally looked at it from a ROI standpoint. Sony doesn't have the money to play around with what is essentially a pet project like that.

 
Bottom line is that we're weirdos here... The last page of posts verifies this. Most users don't care to play ps1/2/3 games streaming or no. That's why Sony made the middle tier - lots of access to ps4/5 games. That's where the majority of users will end up (if they upgrade at all) because those are the new and modern games.

Outside of the oddball here how many Gamepass users get hyped for og Xbox games or even 360 games? The vast majority of gamers want to play new games and that's it.
 
Eh, wish current ps plus subscribers get a taste of ps now. Good thing they didn’t change anything for ps plus subscribers but would’ve been nice if they added some ps now for free
 
They didn’t say anything about being able to purchase some of the classic games outright like on the PS3. Hopefully they allow this like Xbox does, becusse I have no interest in subscribing but I’d gladly buy a handful
 
This feels like a rebranding more than a new service to compete with Game Pass.  Sony just isn't trying if they aren't willing to put day 1 releases on there and they don't have a robust reward system like Mircrosoft does.  I know it was mentioned that Microsoft has gimped the reward service, but I haven't noticed, I've earned 20k points so far this month which for those who don't know is about $22, easily enough to cover the cost of GPU and then some.  As someone who loves Game Pass but also loves PlayStation, I don't have any interest in this new service and or upgrading the 8 years of PS+ on my account to a higher tier unless they do a $1 deal like Microsoft did with GPU.

 
It's a rebranding and a sort of trade.
In exchange for locking PS Now stuff behind PS Plus (a $60/year commitment), they are attempting to address long-standing complaints by revitalizing the PS Now library with bigger releases and more legacy support as well as offering a discounted PS Now package for those who don't care for streaming or older games (which they assume is a lot of their audience). There's also the bringing back of game trials in that top-tier but that seems like more of an afterthought.
Most of us have both or only have Plus so to us it's a fair trade but anyone who already thought Plus was a waste of money (without the "free" games, it's basically just cloud storage and MP) but liked Now, is screwed long-term.
 
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