Games with Gold vs. PlayStation Plus: What's the Better Value?

In 2010, Sony introduced the gaming industry to a relatively brand new concept. This idea was called PlayStation Plus, a service wherein gamers would pay a subscription fee and in return receive free game downloads every month via the Instant Game Collection, along with special discounts.

Since then, PS Plus has become Sony's Xbox Live Gold equivalent, with a PS Plus subscription required to enjoy online multiplayer for PS4 games. Just as Sony aped Microsoft's online multiplayer subscription model, Microsoft saw the popularity of the PS Plus service, which at last count neared 8 million subscribers, and decided to issue a similar program for Xbox 360 and Xbox One. With two of gaming's giants offering similar services, it's time to examine them both in detail and determine which service is ultimately the better value.

Six months ago, we compared PlayStation Plus to Xbox Live, but now we're looking specifically at the value of PlayStation Plus's Instant Game Collection and Xbox Live Gold's Games with Gold program. Since that time, both services have received significant changes, and a bombshell dropped at E3 2015 may significantly tip the odds in favor of Games with Gold in the future.

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PS Plus Instant Game Collection

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Originally, the main purpose of PS Plus was to offer the Instant Game Collection as well as bonus discounts. However, since then, the service has expanded to also represent Sony's online multiplayer offerings on the PS4. By putting online multiplayer behind a paywall for the PlayStation 4, Sony has been able to greatly increase the PS Plus subscription base, and those subscribers enjoy the added benefit of the free batch of monthly games.

The PS Plus Instant Game Collection is updated every month with brand new games across Sony's three core platforms: the PS3, the PS Vita, and the PS4. Each system receives two free games, though Sony's cross-buy functionality means that sometimes players are able to enjoy them on multiple platforms. This is the case with June 2015's PS Plus offerings for PS4 owners. Not only can PlayStation Plus subscribers download the two free PS4 games for the month, but they are also able to download the two free PS Vita games as well. This type of benefit is currently not available for Games with Gold in any capacity. What this amounts to is that if someone owned just the PS3 and the PS4, they would have received a total of six free games for the month of June, compared to the three new free games for Games with Gold in the same month.

That being said, even though PlayStation Plus subscribers have access to more games, the reality is that most games in the service simply are not worthwhile. Even if they're decent experiences, Sony has a bad habit of padding PS Plus with really low budget indie titles or games that just don't offer a lot of value. Let's take the PS4 headliner for PS Plus in June, for example. Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes, despite bearing the name of an AAA franchise, is a game that can literally be beaten in 10 minutes or less, whereas the Xbox One headliner for Games with Gold in June, Massive Chalice, despite being a crowdfunded game with a relatively small budget, provides significantly more playtime and replay value.

Perhaps the biggest downside to the PS Plus service is that once one ends the subscription, the downloaded games become unplayable. This means that games acquired through the service are not really owned by the player, but merely rented. Furthermore, one has to own at least two of the systems in the PlayStation ecosystem in order to fully enjoy the benefits of PS Plus, otherwise paying $50 a year for it is a bit hard to justify.

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Up Next: The Pros and Cons of Games with Gold

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Games with Gold

When Games with Gold debuted on Xbox 360, it came with a number of differences compared to PS Plus. First of all, Games with Gold offers two free game downloads per month, with one game available for half of the month and the other available for the second half of the month. This equates to less games overall, but the Xbox 360 Games with Gold free titles have been fairly stellar almost every month, with Microsoft constantly putting out AAA titles on the service. Additionally, any Xbox 360 games downloaded through the Games with Gold program are forever playable, even if someone decides not to renew their Gold subscription.

Unfortunately, in the transition from Xbox 360 to Xbox One, the Games with Gold program has lost much of its value on Xbox 360. On Xbox One, two games are available to download each month, but only one of them is new, with one game always retained from the previous month, or as is the case with the poorly received Pool Nation FX, the last three months. This means overall, Games with Gold on Xbox One offers players significantly less new content compared to PS Plus.

It doesn't help matters that the Xbox One Games with Gold games are rarely, if ever, high budget releases, meaning they have less value than their Xbox 360 counterparts. In fact, the only major release that the Xbox One Games with Gold program has enjoyed as a free game to date has been Rayman Legends.

Until just recently, Games with Gold enjoyed an additional benefit compared to PS Plus. While PS Plus has always offered fantastic discounts on Sony's seemingly random flash sales, Games with Gold has offered a consistent discount on major games since its creation. Sony has since taken this idea and applied it to PS Plus, calling it the PlayStation Plus Specials program, so now the services are even on that front.

On top of all that, one of the main reasons to side with Games with Gold over PS Plus, the ability to keep playing the games without staying subscribed to Xbox Live Gold, is no longer a factor on Xbox One. So while Games with Gold on Xbox 360 is a great value, Microsoft has really dropped the ball with the program in the jump from Xbox 360 to Xbox One.

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Next: Which Service Wins?

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The Verdict

Right now the Xbox One's main Games with Gold problem is that, with the exception of Rayman Legends, virtually all the games it has offered have been indie titles, and most of them, fairly mediocre ones at that. There have been some exceptions, such as Massive Chalice from Double Fine, Child of Light, and Guacamelee!, but for the most part, Games with Gold as it exists on Xbox One has been fairly disappointing.

However, recent news out of E3 has opened the doors to the possibility of the Xbox One Games with Gold program improving greatly. It was announced during Microsoft's E3 2015 press conference that a future update for Xbox One will make it backward compatible with Xbox 360. This means that Microsoft no longer has to rely on indie titles or wait a year after a game comes out to offer it as a free Games with Gold title. They can now mine the Xbox 360 library for high quality releases, giving Xbox 360 games a significantly longer lifespan, and reviving classic online multiplayer experiences that some may have missed out on over the years.

Overall, it seems that PlayStation Plus, with the $10 less price point (when purchasing an annual subscription) and simply more games, is indeed the better value. While Games with Gold may have a fighting chance once the Xbox 360 backwards compatibility update is applied to Xbox One, for now, PS Plus is the better out of the two subscription services when it comes to current-gen, with the services about even in terms of last-gen.

Which program do you think offers more bang for your buck? Let us know in the comments!