PlayStation Plus has been giving subscribers free games every month for years, the quality of which definitely varies. A fan has broken down the value of PlayStation Plus' first year on PS5, revealing a variety of metrics and statistics about the service.
As a service, PlayStation Plus has evolved significantly since its inception during the PS3 era. Back then, it simply was a service that offered a handful of games every month at a fairly decent rate, but at the turn of the generation, Sony took a play out of Microsoft's book, and linked the PS4's online capabilities to PS Plus, like Xbox did with Xbox Live in the 360 era. Now in the current generation with the PS5, PS Plus still resembles itself from the PS4 era, though there are some more perks, like the PS Plus Collection of games.
Reddit user joseph2411 recently created five data tables breaking down PS Plus' first year on PS5, and shared it on the PlayStation Plus subreddit. In his post titled "PlayStation Plus on PS5 - One Year Later," joseph2411 provides five different perspectives on PS Plus' first year, starting with an examination of the monthly lineup of strictly PS5 games. From Bugsnax last November when the PS5 launched, to this month's First Class Trouble, there have been a total of 11 games, a value of $449.85 in total, and an average $29.99 per game. In their second breakdown, joseph2411 finds the same data points from before but with the PS Plus Collection of games, the total value being $504.80, and at 20 games available, that's an average of $25.24 per game.
After gathering data on all the PS4 games released on PS Plus this year, joseph2411 determined the grand total value of PS Plus to be $1,919.39, with average price of $31.46 at 61 games. Throughout the tables, joseph2411 also includes Metacritic averages where applicable, with PS Plus in general having an average of 77. While a favorable review score, many fans have vocalized their frustration with PS Plus this year, after the service started out strong, but gradually lessened in quality. To view joseph2411's full series of PS Plus breakdowns, click here.
Joseph2411 deserves a lot of credit for their work on these breakdowns, as it likely required a lot research and calculations, not to mention the consistently clean graphic design. Based on this information, PS Plus could probably be considered a valuable service when looking at how many games are given throughout the year, and how much money that is actually totalled at. What this information does not show though is player rate of the games, or just how many of these titles are actually being downloaded every month. It is great that PlayStation Plus is nearing 50 million subscribers, but that number may drop if players feel the service is no longer worth it.