PlayStation Plus

Announced at E3, PlayStation Plus is a new subscription service  to the PlayStation Network.

At release, I subscribed a year, costing me £39.99, the same as an Xbox Live Gold subscription for the year (from Microsoft directly).  So, what did this get me (me personally, which I now own and have downloaded, not everything it offered)?

Free Games (usual price in brackets)

• Little Big Planet (£19.99?)
• WipEout HD – PS3 (£13.99)
• Destruction Derby – PS one (£3.99)
• Fieldrunners – minis (£3.99)
• Age of Zombies – minis (£3.99)

Game Packs

• Killzone 2 Game pack (£4.79)

Other stuff

• An orange icon next to my name

What would I have purchased even without the subscription?, well just WipEout HD.  I would not have got the minis or PS one content att all, if I didn’t own a PSP though.  I really don’t like looking at those graphics, stretched to 1080p on my 42″ television.

So far there have been no additions to this since release, however I do recall reading somewhere, this would not be a weekly thing like the rest of the games on the PlayStation store, but this would be a monthly update. Looking at what I’ve got so far it a bit meh.

Although the collection has been slim so far, I am still on the fence as to whether or not there will be a renewal, obviously being 1 year away things are likely to change.

Under the Account Management -> Transaction Management -> Services List, it seems to suggest that both WipEout and Little Big Planet expire at the end of the year, when my PS+ sub expires..really hope this is not the case.

What else?

Automatic updates. I find it strange this is a paid feature, but that’s not the point here.  I downloaded WipEout HD and upon opening it told me there was an update.  Instead of doing it then I decided to leave the update and turn off the console.  2 days later I come back and it asked me to download this update.  I would have thought, during this 48 hour period, the auto-update might have done something.