PlayStation Plus Prices Are Increasing for New Subscribers Starting May 20

PlayStation Plus, Sony’s subscription gaming service for its consoles, is increasing its price for new subscribers. The company blamed “ongoing market conditions” for the price increase. It’s the go-to explanation for gaming hardware companies, including Microsoft and Nintendo’s increases in pricing for the Xbox and Switch 2 consoles. 

The price for PS Plus subscriptions for new customers will increase by $1 from $10 to $11 for a one-month subscription starting on May 20, according to a post from the official PlayStation X account on Monday. The three-month subscription price will jump by $3, from $25 to $28, on the same effective date. 

Read more: Nintendo Offers Free Games Prior to Switch 2 Price Hike

Sony didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about the specific market conditions. 

Although it wasn’t specifically mentioned in the post, this increase appears to apply only to the PS Plus Essential tier, the lowest-priced tier. PS Plus Essential is needed for online play with PS4 and PS5 games, as well as having access to a select number of games each month. 

This doesn’t appear to affect the PS Plus Extra and Premium tiers, both of which allow subscribers to access a catalog of hundreds of games. Those two subscription options will, as of now, stay at the same price of $15 and $18 a month. 

The post did say this price change affects new customers, not current subscribers, except for those in India and Turkey. This would include those who have never subscribed to the service and those who canceled their subscription and are looking to restart it. Sony rarely provides PS Plus subscriber numbers, but an Icon Era report from January estimates the number at just over 50 million as of the end of 2024. 

Back in March, Sony increased the price of its PS5 console lineup across the board. Microsoft had to do the same with its Xbox consoles. Nintendo announced earlier in the month that it will increase the price of the Switch 2 in September. The most likely reason for these jumps in pricing is the current memory shortage, aka RAMageddon. A spike in demand for computer hardware to run AI data centers has led to huge price increases for both RAM and solid-state drives.