Playstation Plus: Is it Worth the Money? – Week Two

Last week I started what I thought would be a monthly feature on the Playstation Plus. However, since the article proved popular and Playstation Plus appears to be updating weekly now, I figured I’d do the same to help those of you on the fence decide if it’s a worthwhile purchase or not. As we saw last week, I found everything available on PSPlus to be rubbish or overpriced.

With this week’s edition, we’ll be continuing with the same format. We’ll take a quick look at the Playstation Plus lineup for this week and then break it down into six categories:

1. Already own, but would have purchased without PSPlus

2. Already own, but regret purchasing

3. Don’t own, but would have purchased w/out PSPlus

4. Wouldn’t have purchased, but downloaded due to PSPlus

5. Wouldn’t bother downloading this regardless

6. Discount isn’t enough to make me pull the trigger

So there we go. Six possible categories each PSPlus item can fall under. Then at the end of the column we’ll see if I got my $3.33 for the mouth out of it.


Playstation Plus additions for the week of 07/06

Qore Episode 26 (July Single episode Free to PlayStation Plus subscribers, $2.99 otherwise)

Field Runners (Free to PlayStation Plus Subscribers, $6.99 otherwise)

MAG Raven Character Avatar (Free to PlayStation Plus Subscribers)

MAG SVER Character Avatar (Free to PlayStation Plus Subscribers)

MAG Valor Character Avatar (Free to PlayStation Plus Subscribers)

King Zumo Theme (Free to PlayStation Plus Subscribers)

Super Stardust HD (PlayStation Plus price $5.00, original price $9.99)
Super Stardust HD Team add-on Pack (PlayStation Plus price $2.50, original price $4.99)
Super Stardust HD Solo add-on Pack (PlayStation Plus price $2.50, original price $4.99)

Hamsterball (PlayStation Plus price $3.99, original price $9.99)


Now, let’s break things down.

1. Already own, but would have purchased without PSPlus
Nothing at all this week, which kind of tells you the quality, or rather lack thereof, in this week’s offerings.

2. Already own, but regret purchasing
Nothing in this column either, which is a good sign.

3. Don’t own, but would have purchased w/out PSPlus
Hamsterball (PlayStation Plus price $3.99, original price $9.99) – If you read last week’s piece, then you know I said I would have bitten the bullet on Hamsterball if it was under five bucks and that the discount given wasn’t really much of one. Well now it’s at my price point on the regular PSN, and with PSPlus, I save a dollar more. Four bucks for a Super Monkey Ball clone? Why not?

4. Wouldn’t have purchased, but downloaded due to PSPlus
Qore Episode 26 – I’ve always said Qore is the measuring stick that Sony uses to see which of its supporters are stupid enough to throw money away at what amounts to little more than customers paying for commercials. After finally watching an actual episode of Qore, I can honestly say that not only was I right, but that this was stupider than I ever imagined. Annoying hosts, horrible infomericals and the use of the them from Monty Python’s Flying Circus in a round-up about movies with the word “America” or “American” in it that just happened to be only movies on Blu-ray. Wow, I bet the people who bought Qore are kicking themselves now if they also purchased Playstation Plus.

Field Runners – I’m not a big fan of Tower Defense games as I find them boring and repetitive. Field Runners was no exception and I’m SHOCKED there is a PSP Mini that sells for seven dollars. Especially when it is as crappy as this one. Come on Sony, try giving a PSP Mini that doesn’t suck. You are 0 for 2 right now. God knows with how bad the “free” stuff has been so far, it wouldn’t hurt to try to do something like The Mystery of the Crystal Portal, Monsters (Probably) Stole My Princess, INFLUENCE, Hysteria Project, or something else a little less overplayed and cliché?

5. Wouldn’t bother downloading this regardless
MAG Raven Character Avatar (Free to PlayStation Plus Subscribers)
MAG SVER Character Avatar (Free to PlayStation Plus Subscribers)
MAG Valor Character Avatar (Free to PlayStation Plus Subscribers)
King Zumo Theme (Free to PlayStation Plus Subscribers) – The avatars are lame and the theme is just plain ugly. Why would anyone bother with any of these? Again Sony, you need to offer something interesting.

6. Discount isn’t enough to make me pull the trigger
Super Stardust HD (PlayStation Plus price $5.00, original price $9.99)
Super Stardust HD Team add-on Pack (PlayStation Plus price $2.50, original price $4.99)
Super Stardust HD Solo add-on Pack (PlayStation Plus price $2.50, original price $4.99) – I love my shoot ’em ups, but Super Stardust has never interested me. Ten bucks for the whole package is still more than I’m willing to pay.


So this week I downloaded $9.98 worth of stuff, which combined with the $36.95 I downloaded last week for a grand total of $46.93, or just shy of the $49.99 I paid for a 15 month subscription to Playstation Plus. So in terms of just numbers, In two weeks of Playstation Plus, I have downloaded almost enough stuff to cover the cost. However when you look past the numbers, you notice that it’s $46.93 of pretty terrible stuff that I wouldn’t have paid one red cent for in the first place and only downloaded because it was free.

In fact so far all that Playstation Plus has done is give me a whopping dollar off a game. In other words, I paid $49.99 to save a dollar on a $4.99 game. Which of course means I paid money to pay more money which is exactly the sort of stupid Sony is counting on gamers to engage in. In my case, Playstation Plus was a work write-off; what’s the excuse of so many others? Worst of all, in the case of Hamster Ball, there are probably some people who bit at the original discounted price of $7.99 and uttered some profanity when they saw this new, lower pricing. Between that and the free Qore that a lot of PSPlus subscribers probably already paid for separately, there are a lot of Playstation 3 owners that should be irate, if they aren’t already.

So, after two weeks of Playstation Plus, the service continues to be something that actually screws over longtime Sony zealots and the naïve alike. At this point, the only thing I see saving this program is something like a “Buy 1 month, get 1 free” offer for DC Universe Online, or giving away titles like Everyday Shooter or Critter Crunch. I’m neither impressed nor optimistic with Playstation Plus at this point, and for those of you who are still on the fence, I advise you to hold back until something good actually comes of the service, if it ever does.


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3 responses to “Playstation Plus: Is it Worth the Money? – Week Two”

  1. Christopher Bowen Avatar

    I still say it’s better than LIVE Gold, because nothing can ever be worse than LIVE Gold.

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