that's a lot of games —

Sony’s new PlayStation Plus launches in US with over 800 games

Plenty of titles for streaming/downloading from across five PlayStation generations.

When Sony announced its new tiered PlayStation Plus program in March, it promised that the most expensive Premium tier would include "up to" 740 games from across all five PlayStation consoles (and the PlayStation Portable). As recently as last month, the company had only revealed a bit over 100 of the games that would be included in its top-tier subscription plan.

With today's launch of the new PlayStation Plus in the US, though, we can now see the full catalog of titles Sony is making available to subscribers for download and/or streaming. And that launch list actually surpasses Sony's promises, including nearly 400 PS4/PS5 games (available on the "Extra" tier or above) and over 460 games from earlier console generations (available on the "Premium" tier).

In terms of recent-generation games, PlayStation Plus includes 34 that also offer an "enhanced" PS5 version, alongside a handful of PS5 exclusives like Returnal and Demon's Souls. That list also includes 27 games from "Ubisoft Plus Classics" provided by the major third-party publisher.

Meanwhile, in the Premium tier's "Classics Catalog," there are hundreds of PS3 games that are only available via streaming (and which ran at 720p resolution in a quick test by Ars' Sam Machkovech). Many games originally available for other consoles will also be available for streaming via a PS4, PS5, or PC on this tier, plus direct download on consoles.

It looks like the PS1 games available on PlayStation Plus are running at their original 60 Hz NTSC rate; they are not the slower 50 Hz PAL versions that were made available in some other regions.

Premium tier subscribers also get access to two-hour game trials for select PS4 and PS5 games. That trial availability is extremely limited for now, though, spanning just 12 games, including Cyberpunk 2077 and Tiny Tina's Wonderlands.

Players who aren't interested in downloadable/streamable game access can still sign up for the more limited Essential tier, which is roughly analogous to the previous PlayStation Plus offering. That $59.99 annual membership offers access to cloud saves, online multiplayer games, and two specially chosen game downloads from the PS4/PS5 library.

All of the new PlayStation Plus tiers also include access to the PlayStation Plus collection, with access to 19 PS4 classics that are playable only on PS5 consoles.

Channel Ars Technica