Update no. 3: News of PS Plus updates in Asia could erode the resounding historical discounts around the world and forced Sony to release a statement stating that this is a technical bug that has now been resolved:
Due to a technical error, Asian players who have previously purchased a PlayStation Plus subscription at a discount have been charged incorrectly for the upgrade price. This bug has been fixed and affected players will receive a credit. Thank you for your patience. – Ask on PlayStation (@AskPlayStation) May 25, 2022
We would say the only mistake here is that the company got stuck, but at least their response has been quick.
Update no. 2: After effectively admitting that it intended to eliminate the historical discounts for those who want to upgrade their PS Plus subscriptions, it starts to look like Sony has gone backwards. The company, perhaps feeling a colossal reaction, has made some adjustments to its update calculation tool, ignoring previous offers that may have been taken advantage of.
A couple of images of a user in Thailand show the change:
Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle. A Thai user (/ u / mrculi) reports that their luxury upgrade no longer forces them to compensate Sony for the PS + discount. The first image is from Monday, the second is today. pic.twitter.com/8sBObvn3hp: PS5 coming out in India? 🇺🇦 (@ PS5India) May 25, 2022
Hopefully the company has made sense and this is the last thing we hear about this, because this whole unfortunate story was, to say the least, disgusting. Those of you who have stacked subscriptions will still have to pay your full term in advance if you want to upgrade.
Update no. 1: A Sony support email from a Hong Kong employee, detected by ResetEra, appears to confirm that the platform owner will erode discounts on previously purchased subscriptions when users seek to upgrade their PS Plus subscriptions. While some had argued that this could be a mistake and that the organization would never go down so low, the translated correspondence suggests otherwise.
The message, like Google Translated, explains: “If you need to upgrade to the second or third tier of your subscription, you must first make up the difference in the previous discounted price to return to the normal price. For example, a one-year subscription to PS Plus It was HK $ 308 and the discount price was HK $ 187.60, so the difference is HK $ 120.40 divided by the number of months remaining “.
Therefore, those with stacked subscriptions will not only have to pay for the full subscription period in advance to upgrade, but will also be deducted from previously obtained discounts. Amazing! We contacted Sony yesterday to try to clarify whether this policy will apply to the West, but we have not received any comments yet.
We sincerely hope the company is struggling to correct it before next month’s launch.
Original story: Sony has about two weeks to avoid a storm of epic proportions in the west, assuming that the news coming out of Asia will be constant here. The new PS Plus was launched in countries like Hong Kong and Taiwan overnight, but local gamers are absolutely angry at the way the platform owner handles updates. It is effectively eliminating discounts with which season tickets have been purchased and also requires an advance fee to update stacked subscriptions.
All of this makes some users pay $ 100 to upgrade from the bogus PS Plus Essential standard to PS Plus Extra or PS Plus Deluxe (the alternate version of PS Plus Premium available in countries without cloud streaming functionality). It is worth noting that cases like this will be limited, as the frankly frightening figures only apply to people who have accumulated subscriptions a few years in the future, but the reaction will be huge if this also happens in the United States and Europe. Those who stack up subscriptions, after all, are probably the most dedicated, loyal, and vocal customers.
To further expand on what Asian gamers are angry about, those with active subscriptions to PS Plus Essential, for example, 2026, are quoted for the full four-year price to upgrade to PS Plus Extra or PS Plus Deluxe. There is no way to upgrade for, say, a year and return to PS Plus Essential after that time expires. Sony will charge you the difference for upgrading, but some of the initial sharing rates are huge.
To make matters worse, the Japanese giant is unfoundedly eliminating the historic discounts on subscriptions purchased through the PS Store. So, for example, if you bought your subscription while it was on sale and then chose to upgrade, it will increase the price difference to erode the savings you initially earned. Basically, this means that you are retroactively removing any offers you may have offered on subscriptions in the past, unthinkable, really.
There is enough evidence online to confirm that all of this is happening right now in Asia, but of course it is possible that things can be handled differently in the West. We’ll contact Sony and try to get confirmation of how they’re addressing this issue in North America and Europe, and we’ll update when or if we hear. However, if this is the route the company has planned to take, it may be good that it has taken a staggered launch, because it has a few weeks to correct itself before it has a colossal commotion in its hands.