Sony's offering huge discounts on PlayStation Plus subscriptions

If you have a PS4 or PS5, Sony has a festive offer on PS Plus that could save you a lot of cash – provided you don't currently subscribe to the service. The deal gives you PS Plus Essential, Extra or Premium for up to 50% off the usual annual price. 

The discounted rates are:

• PS Plus Essential: $29.99 / £24.99 (50% off)
• PS Plus Extra: $69.99 / £58.99 (30% off)
• PS Plus Premium: $89.99 / £74.99 (25% off)

If PS Plus doesn't appeal, Sony is also discounting lots of games in its PlayStation Store's end of year promotion. The list of discounted titles is on the Sony blog here, but you'll need to move quickly: the discounts are only available until 21 December.

Is PS Plus worth it?

That's a good question. If you want to play online multiplayer you need a PS Plus subscription, so on that basis it's necessary. But the more premium tiers are all about the games library, and whether that appeals depends very much on what kind of gamer you are. I'm a subscriber to Premium and I think at full price it's hard to justify, but it's worth considering when it's discounted.

That's because Sony has taken a very different approach to Microsoft. It wants to keep its highly profitable triple-A releases separate from its streaming, so while you can play the superb Returnal and Spider-Man: Miles Morales on the service the bulk of the content is older. That's not to say there aren't some brilliant games there. But for me, it often feels a bit like returning to somewhere you used to live and seeing that it isn't as nice as you remember it.

If you're considering a PS Plus subscription, I'd recommend checking out Sony's list of games for the Extra and Premium tiers; the Essentials is basically just the old PS Plus with a couple of free games each month. If the games list gets you excited then Sony's deals bring the price down considerably – but you'll need to subscribe before 21 December, when the prices go back up again.