Sony Reportedly Charging Higher Upgrade Fee On Previously Discounted PS Plus Subscriptions
Sony is reportedly charging a higher upgrade fee from existing PS Plus subscribers who paid a discounted price for their subscription. The upgrade in question is in relation to the new PS Plus subscription tiers i.e. PS Plus Extra and PS Plus Premium. Users who bought their existing PS Plus subscription at the standard price of $60 need not be concerned with the upgrade price hike, however.
Apparently, Sony has a way of keeping track of subscription discounts, as they generate special codes that are then sold to third-party key sellers. When these codes are redeemed by PSN users, they can essentially be tracked by the console maker.
ResetEra member VodkaFX performed some calculations and deduced that the Singapore PlayStation Store was charging him an extra fee for the upgrades for both PS Plus Extra and PS Plus Premium. Based on his calculation, he is being asked to pay around $32 more than he should be paying for the PS Plus Extra upgrade.
There is no Premium tier for Singapore as PS Now is not available here, so no PS3 streaming.
For reference, PS+ Essential is priced at SGD $53.90 per annum.
I did the calculation. Based on Extra tier. Prices are in SGD.
799 Days * ($89.90 – $53.90) / 365 = ~$78.80
But Sony wants me to pay $111.02.
Another member was told that a Hong Kong PSN user had bought 15 years worth of PS Plus at 33% discount from Sony. In order to upgrade to PS Plus Extra now he needs to pay around $1500 more than the standard price in order to pay back the discounted amount and upgrade to a higher tier.
It’s hard to say whether this has been done in error or Sony is actually looking to revert previously offered discounts via the PlayStation Plus upgrade path. As of writing, there has been no official word on the matter from Sony. The higher tier subscriptions are currently only available in Asian markets, but if the trend continues to other regions, the higher upgrade fee is likely being charged intentionally and not in error.
Earlier in March, Sony revealed that the revised PlayStation Plus service with a three-tier subscription plan will premiere in June 2022. The new service would debut in Asian countries outside Japan on May 23, 2022, Japan on June 1, 2022, North America on June 13, 2022, and Europe on June 22, 2022. T
he original PlayStation Plus will be renamed to PlayStation Essential, PlayStation Plus Extra will include access to up to 400 PS4 and PS5 games, while PlayStation Plus Premium will include everything offered in the other tiers as well as the ability to stream up to 340 PS1, PS2, PS3, and PSP games. For regions where PS Now is not available, Sony will offer PlayStation Plus Deluxe, an alternate version of PlayStation Plus Premium that contains all of its perks, but does not include cloud streaming.
