PS Plus Premium gets surprise win despite poor player reception

PS Plus Premium comes under a lot of scrutiny for its stingy collection of games, yet, this hasn't stopped it from being a highly subscribed tier.

With the latest PS Plus Extra and Premium new games of May 2023, it's clear that the Extra tier gets the most value for money — something continually reiterated in our PS Plus tier comparison. However, despite this, PS Plus premium has a 30% lead over PS Plus Extra when it comes to subscribers.

PS Plus Premium dominates over PS Plus Extra despite lukewarm reception!

PS Plus Premium subscribers dominate over Extra in a 30% lead

The information was revealed at Sony's Business Segment Meeting, where we learned that PS Plus Premium has 8.0 million subscribers, while PS Plus Extra has 6.1 million — making an overall difference of 1.9 million subscribers between the two tiers as of March 2023.

When taking a look at the PS Plus subscribers count for Q4 2022, we can see that in total there are 47.4 million PS5 and PS4 players subscribed to the service in some capacity. In fact, if we do the math, over 33.3 million users are subscribed at the Essential tier, giving it a huge lead over both Extra and Premium — which is understandable seeing as it is the cheapest of the three tiers.

PS Plus Premium lead can be seen in this graph!

If we take into account the complaints that tend to arise over Premium's Classic Catalog of games — or lack of — this is quite a surprising turn of events to see. Premium is supposed to house a variety of PS1, PS2, PSP, and PS3 games, unfortunately, the service is yet to even add a single PS2 title to its catalog. Those of you who love classic titles like Syphon Filter, Ape Escape, and Wild Arms may see a lot of benefits to subscribing to Premium. However, for everyone else, it's a pretty lacking tier in comparison to Extra — something Kes touches on within his PS Plus Premium Pursuit Force article.

What do you make of this steep difference in subscribers? Surprised to see Premium beating out Extra? What tier are you subscribed to? Do any of the best PS Plus games influence your choices? Let us know in the comments below!

PlayStation Plus

Written by Sean Lawson

Sean is a Staff Writer with a focus on the geekiest Sony news. He writes stories about unobtainable PlayStation trophies, the best PS Plus games, as well as RPGs and Fighting games. He is also excited for Tekken 8, Dragon Age Dreadwolf, and Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty to launch on PS5. Sean’s favourite games include Mass Effect, Tomb Raider, Tekken, and Persona.