Sony’s new PlayStation Plus makes retro games an expensive option

theverge.com:

Sony has just announced its new PlayStation Plus subscription tiers, which will be available later this year, and with the new “Extra” and “Premium” levels, you’ll get access to back catalogs of many PlayStation games. However, if you want to play classic PS3, PS2, PS1, and PSP games, you’ll have to pay for “Premium,” the most expensive option, meaning that Sony is joining Nintendo in putting some of its older games behind its highest-cost subscription.

Using a subscription to access classic games isn’t new for Sony. For years, the company has offered access to PS4, PS3, and PS2 games as part of PlayStation Now, which is an entirely separate subscription service from PlayStation Plus. But instead of using the Plus shakeup to bring more games to the standard tier, Sony has instead decided to use classic games as a carrot to encourage players to subscribe to Premium, which will cost $17.99 per month, $49.99 for three months, or $119.99 per year. That annual fee is essentially what you would have used to pay to subscribe to a year of both Plus and Now — though if you’re a Now subscriber, Sony says you’ll be migrated to the new Plus Premium.

Nintendo has a similar tiered pricing strategy with its Nintendo Switch Online service. That subscription launched in September 2018 with access to a handful of NES games, and nearly a year later, Nintendo added SNES games — and all were available for the relatively low prices of $3.99 per month, $7.99 for three months, or $19.99 for one year. But if you want to play Nintendo’s selection of N64 or Sega Genesis games on your Switch, you’ll have to pay $49.99, a cost that’s more than double the standard individual annual membership, for an entire year of the Expansion Pack.

Microsoft, on