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All-new PlayStation Plus launches in June with 700+ games and more value than ever

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Since launching PlayStation Plus in 2010, SIE has been at the forefront of innovation with game subscription services. We were thrilled to be the first console membership service that included a refreshed library of games through PlayStation Plus, and also launched the first console game streaming service with PlayStation Now. 

Today, we are pleased to share with you official news about changes coming to our subscription services. This June, we’re bringing together PlayStation Plus and PlayStation Now in an all-new PlayStation Plus subscription service that provides more choice to customers across three membership tiers globally. 

Our focus is on providing high-quality, curated content with a diverse portfolio of games*. Below is an overview of the three membership tiers:


PlayStation Plus Essential

Benefits

  • Provides the same benefits that PlayStation Plus members are getting today, such as:
    • Two monthly downloadable games
    • Exclusive discounts
    • Cloud storage for saved games
    • Online multiplayer access
  • There are no changes for existing PlayStation Plus members in this tier.

Price* for PlayStation Plus Essential remains the same as the current price for PlayStation Plus.

  • United States
    • $9.99 monthly / $24.99 quarterly / $59.99 yearly
  • Europe
    • €8.99 monthly / €24.99 quarterly / €59.99 yearly
  • United Kingdom
    • £6.99 monthly / £19.99 quarterly / £49.99 yearly 
  • Japan
    • ¥850 monthly / ¥2,150 quarterly / ¥5,143 yearly

PlayStation Plus Extra

Benefits

  • Provides all the benefits from the Essential tier
  • Adds a catalog of up to 400* of the most enjoyable PS4 and PS5 games – including blockbuster hits from our PlayStation Studios catalog and third-party partners. Games in the Extra tier are downloadable for play.

Price*

  • United States
    • $14.99 monthly / $39.99 quarterly / $99.99 yearly
  • Europe
    • €13.99 monthly / €39.99 quarterly / €99.99 yearly
  • United Kingdom
    • £10.99 monthly / £31.99 quarterly / £83.99 yearly 
  • Japan
    • ¥1,300 monthly / ¥3,600 quarterly / ¥8,600 yearly

PlayStation Plus Premium**

Benefits

  • Provides all the benefits from Essential and Extra tiers
  • Adds up to 340* additional games, including:
    • PS3 games available via cloud streaming
    • A catalog of beloved classic games available in both streaming and download options from the original PlayStation, PS2 and PSP generations 
  • Offers cloud streaming access for original PlayStation, PS2, PSP and PS4 games offered in the Extra and Premium tiers in markets** where PlayStation Now is currently available. Customers can stream games using PS4 and PS5 consoles, and PC.*** 
  • Time-limited game trials will also be offered in this tier, so customers can try select games before they buy.

Price*

  • United States
    • $17.99 monthly / $49.99 quarterly / $119.99 yearly
  • Europe
    • €16.99 monthly / €49.99 quarterly / €119.99 yearly
  • United Kingdom
    • £13.49 monthly / £39.99 quarterly /

The History of Housemarque – from the Finnish Demoscene to PlayStation Studios

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Selene’s looping adventure evolved with new gameplay modes when the Returnal Ascension DLC launched last week. The team at Housemarque is thrilled to create new ways for fans to play the challenging-yet-rewarding, arcade-inspired shooter on PS5. In fact, iterating on satisfying gameplay is deeply ingrained in the studio’s culture, starting back in 1994.

I am sure that not everyone reading this blog is aware of our long history as a studio, so please continue to find out more about our story and how we ended up  launching Returnal and becoming part of the PlayStation Studios family. 


Whether Returnal was your first introduction to Housemarque, or you have played some of our previous games, you might not know that we are the oldest game studio in Finland, founded just a few months before our friends at Remedy, creators of the Alan Wake series and Control.

But how did Housemarque come to be, and how did we end up being part of the PlayStation Studios family?

90s Demoscene Origins

Before Housemarque, there were Bloodhouse and Terramarque, two gaming studios headed by Harri Tikkanen and me respectively, both with deep roots in the 1990’s gaming demoscene. In 1995 me and Harri decided to join forces and our studios, and that’s how Housemarque was born.

Housemarque Studio Head Ilari Kuittinen

The demoscene was formed around hobbyists called demo groups, creating tech demos with the best visuals possible and pushing the limit of the hardware available at the time, and Finland had a strong demoscene community, developing on systems such as Amiga, Commodore, Atari, and more. Local game developers took part in it, because it was just the coolest thing to do back then; many of them were young and still studying. This was the pre-gaming industry in Finland, and likely one of the drivers in its beginning. But even with such a thriving community, the game development industry was still quite small in Finland: it was difficult to make games and actually complete them. Many games ended up in game development limbo for a year or even more. That was the reason why Housemarque got its start.

In December 1994 myself – Ilari Kuittinen – and Harri Tikkanen sat down and had our first serious chat about joining forces, as we had already known each other because of the small size of the game industry, where everybody knew everybody else. We quickly reached an agreement and in June 1995 we decided to create a new gaming studio. We chose to name it Housemarque, as the combination of our companies: Bloodhouse and Terramarque.

Super Stardust (Amiga, Amiga CD32, 1994 | PC, 1996)

Enter Housemarque

The first games we released as Housemarque – a year after its creation – were Alien Incident (1996), a point-and-click adventure game, and Super Stardust on PC (1996), a space shooter that was the beginning of our arcade roots, and a game we are still proud of to this day. Super Stardust was originally developed by Bloodhouse and released on Amiga and Amiga CD32 in 1994. These games were just the beginning of Housemarque’s story.

True to the local gaming culture of the time, we wanted to create an incredible experience with limited hardware, while also pushing the b

Dreams: The 3rd Annual Impy Awards winners revealed

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Did you catch the 3rd Annual Impy Awards streaming live last night? If you did: thanks for tuning in! And our sincere apologies for subjecting you to The Connie Hat. You know the one.

Don’t worry if you couldn’t make it, though – we’ve popped a video of the show onto our YouTube channel for you to enjoy at your leisure. Do give it a look: alongside our celebration of some of the very best creations and moments from the past 12 months in Dreams, we had all sorts of special celebrity guests drop by to say hello!

It was, as ever, a delight and an honour to hand out trophies to this year’s victors. We’d like to say another big thank you to our wonderful expert guest judges – gathered together from across a variety of creative industries – for helping us with the incredibly difficult task of selecting a single worthy winner in each category. Thanks, too, to all of you who cast a vote in our four coMmunity-voted categories! Clearly, you have excellent taste – as you’ll see below.

Yes, it’s finally time to reveal the full list of winners. Er, again. But this time in blog format!

Excellence in Art Direction

The IdylliumZIIQ, Helekosi and Bevis2

Excellence in Environment Art

Tales from Dark Town: Red ZoneDirtyFlusher and dinox11

Excellence in Narrative

The War to End All WarsDerAnder_96

Excellence in Sculpture

JoyGoGoSaint

Music Track of the Year

Starlight  – Prince_Tahra

Musician of the Year

RAKeogh

Excellence in

Official PlayStation Podcast Episode 426: Returning

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Email us at PSPodcast@sony.com!

Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google or RSS, or download here


This week, the team dives deeper into Elden Ring and returns to Atropos in Returnal: Ascension.

Stuff We Talked About

  • Moss and Moss Book II
  • Returnal: Ascension
  • Elden Ring
  • Ghostwire: Tokyo
  • Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin

The Cast

Tim Turi –  Manager, Content Communications, SIE

Brett Elston – Manager, Content Communications, SIE

Share of the Week: In Motion

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Last week we asked you to share moments while in the swing of motion using #PSshare #PSblog. Here are this week’s moving highlights:  

justinphotomode shares Jin striking with his katana in Ghost of Tsushima.

Darkspeed14 shares a Shellsnapper launching itself at Aloy in Horizon Forbidden West.

KenKenVega1 is surrounded by a massive swirl of fish in Abzu.

JonPSindies zooms past in their car of choice in Gran Turismo 7.

Sefwick shares a charging enemy in Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order.

Steve_a_k shares the winds and rain whipping in Returnal: Ascension.

Search #PSshare #PSBlog on Twitter or Instagram to see more entries to this week’s theme. Want to be featured in the next Share of the Week? 

THEME: PS App
SUBMIT BY: 11:59 PM PT on March 30, 2022

Did you know you can now share Create button captures straight from PS App? Next week, share an epic moment from the game of your choice uploaded through PS App using #PSshare #PSBlog for a chance to be featured.

Gran Turismo 7: An update from Polyphony Digital

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Dear Gran Turismo Community,

Thank you for your continued support and feedback on Gran Turismo 7, your voices have not gone unheard. I would like to apologize for the frustration and confusion caused last week with our patch updates which resulted in, not only a server outage but also adjustments to the in-game economy which were made without a clear explanation to our community.

We know that this is not the Gran Turismo experience you expect and we will be making a goodwill gesture in the form of a non-paid credit pack of 1 million Cr. available to those players who may have been affected*. You will see this hit your accounts shortly. Make sure you log into the game before April 25 to claim the credits.

The patch update previously deployed was intended to rectify an issue with inconsistent reward payouts within a part of the World Circuit Events.  But, to re-establish the intended equilibrium and provide more accurate rewards based on time investment and completion, it was necessary to recalculate the rewards system as a whole.

To improve the player experience, we will be rolling out a considerable patch in the beginning of April.  The number of events will be increased, and we will reestablish the reward system with greater balance throughout the game to benefit all players.

Updates which will come into effect beginning of April:

  • Increase rewards in the events in the latter half of the World Circuits by approximately 100% on average.
  • Addition of high rewards for clearing the Circuit Experience in all Gold/All Bronze results.
  • Increase of rewards in Online Races.
  • Include a total of eight new one-hour Endurance Race events to Missions. These will also have higher reward settings.
  • Increase the upper limit of non-paid credits in player wallets from 20M Cr. to 100M Cr.
  • Increase the quantity of Used and Legend cars on offer at any given time.

Beyond this there will be a few additional patches deployed between now and the end of April which will add new cars and course layouts and make some other fixes.

Finally, we also want to take the opportunity to lay out some of the near-term updates we are working on. We can’t confirm an exact date or specifics yet, but will give advance notice via www.gran-turismo.com.

  • Increase the payout value of limited time rewards as we develop as a live service.
  • Further World Circuit event additions.
  • Addition of Endurance Races to Missions including 24-hour races.
  • Addition of Online Time Trials and awarding of rewards according to the player’s difference with the top ranked time.
  • Make it so cars can be sold.

We want to thank you for your continued patience and valuable feedback as we grow and evolve GT7 to make it as enjoyable and rewarding for as many players as possible.  We always want to keep communication lines open with our community so that we can work together to build the best racing experience possible.

*Limit 1 per person. Must own a digital or physical copy of GT7 for PS4 or PS5 prior to the publication of this post  (Friday, 25 March at 1:00am PST)  and log into Gran Turismo 7 between Friday, March 25 at 5:00pm JST/8:00am GMT/ 1:00am PDT and Monday, April 25 at 5:00pm JST/8:00am GMT/ 1:00am PDT to receive the free credit pack.

Major Street Fighter V battle balance and extra aesthetic features coming March 29

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Hello, Fighters around the world! With Capcom Pro Tour concluding another epic season just last month, we continue our tradition of opening the season by taking a fresh pass at Street Fighter V’s battle balance, further fine-tuning each character in the roster… But wait, there’s more! We’re also releasing a couple of extra fun features, including visual filters and the jazzy Cap-Jams remixes for the Season 5 fighters — all coming to Street Fighter V for free on March 29.

Battle Balance

This will be our first Battle Balance since the arrival of Season 5’s characters—Dan, Rose, Akira, Oro, and Luke—so we’re excited to tinker with the entire cast in this new context and, ultimately, see what you will make of it all. We feel the S5 crew is in a pretty good spot, but don’t worry—they’re also getting some tweaks. Here’s a quick preview of the diligent Akira and the colossal Abigail.

In general, our Battle Balance updates bring lots of little adjustments to each characters’ move sets and properties (some attacks become faster, while others do more damage or gain new special attributes). However, sometimes we got a little extra inspiration and added a few surprises too! So this coming Tuesday, you’ll have plenty to play around with and discover in the training room or, if you’re feeling adventurous, in online matches! Good luck!

Tunche is coming to PS4 on March 25

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Tunche is an action rogue-lite game inspired by classic beat ‘em ups such as Final Fight and Streets of Rage with a bit of modern hack ‘n slash and RPG elements. All of that wrapped up in a beautifully animated hand-drawn world with a story set in the heart of the Amazon jungle.

You will be able to choose one of the five unique characters, including Hat Kid from the highly-acclaimed A Hat in Time!

Before talking more about the game itself, aren’t you wondering: What does Tunche mean?

Tunche is the name of a mythological creature, a being from folk tales told by many generations of peoples that live around the jungle and in many other places of South America. It is said that Tunche is a spirit that dwells deep in the heart of the rainforest and that when you get too close to it you’ll be able to hear it whistling. However, if you do, then it might already be too late for you.

In our story, things are a bit different. Tunche is still a fearsome magical being, but he is also the spirit lord of the jungle. One day, all of a sudden, the jungle is overrun by evil magical creatures. These aggressive monsters are attacking villages, kidnapping people. Tunche is considered by locals to be their master, and so everything points to him as the mastermind behind it all.

This is when four explorers, and a certain visitor from another world, each with a personal motive, decide to go into the wilds and find the beast. They will have to face many challenges, some of them born from other folk tales of Amazonian myths, and survive through four different worlds full of danger before they find out what the truth really is.

The studio

Leap Game Studios was founded in 2012 and is based in Lima, Peru. 

Tunche is a very special game for us at LGS. Although this is not our first title, nor our first console launch, it is a very important project for all members of the team.

The game

From the very beginning you will be able to use a simple melee three-hit with the use of the Square button. Each character has different attack speed and reach, so each is unique and everybody will find a playstyle to their liking. The more you fight the more your mana bar fills, and with that you get access to special attacks and Ultimate abilities. Characters specialize in different things: Rumi likes long-ranged magic attacks, while Qaru is good at aerial combos. Hat Kid is an all-rounder with some special moves that come right from A Hat in Time.

Mix different abilities, master Launchers, Air Combos, Power Attacks and Super Magic Attacks to defeat your foes.

While you fight, you will also see your “Stylish Meter” grow in power and go from a basic “D” to a Super Stylish “SSS”. The better the grade at the end of a battle, the better the rewards you will receive.

Rewards are a very important part of your progression. You see, Tunche is also a rogue-lite game designed to be finished in one sitting. Even though characters retain their experience points and become stronger with each journey into the jungle, there are also temporary rewards that can give you a very strong advantage in a single session.

The most important reward comes in the form of Spirit Cores, magical orbs that grant you extra abilities such as setting enemies on fire or calling down lighting from th

Experience the immersive world of The Ascent on PS5, out tomorrow

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Greetings fellow indents! Everything you know is about to change. Your rewarding career of enforced servitude with The Ascent Group on planet Veles is coming to an end and the real adventure is just beginning. The Ascent mega corporation that owns you and everyone in it has just collapsed. Can you survive without it?

The Ascent’s cyberpunk world hits PS4 and PS5 tomorrow. Developed by our 12-person team here at Neon Giant and published by Curve Games, The Ascent is a solo and co-op action-shooter RPG set in a cyberpunk world. Based in a corporate-run metropolis stretching high into the sky and filled with creatures from all over the galaxy. You play as a worker, enslaved by the company that owns you and everyone else in your district: The Ascent Group. One day, you are suddenly caught in a vortex of catastrophic events: The Ascent Group shuts down for unknown reasons and the survival of your district is threatened. You must take up arms and embark on a new mission to find out what started it all.

The rich world on planet Veles has been enhanced even more thanks to the power of the PS5’s DualSense wireless controller. Hear and feel The Ascent’s dystopian Arcology with everything from the sounds of advert jingles to the feeling of your dynamic weapons in your hands. 

The power of sound

Thanks to the DualSense controller speaker, players can experience another level of sound within the game. In the heat of the action mid-fire-fight, just when you think you’re finished, players can hear health packs dropping from enemies. Each time you get hit or alert a group of enemies; you’ll hear the action coming from your hands. In the less action-packed moments, as you roam the neon streets of the arcology, you will hear the corporate propaganda and advertisements from the arcology trying to brainwash your indent mind.

The sound for The Ascent has been produced by award-winning studio Sweet Justice Sound, who have taken the experience to new heights. Using the power of DualSense controller in a unique way, Sweet Justice Sound has manipulated various synthetic sources, from modular synth sounds to EDM drum loops, to create unique sounds and pair them against the events in the game’s audio to enhance the players’ experiences, such as specific sounds for navigating the menu to make it feel tactical and drum kicks for reload to let the player know when the reload is complete. 

PS5 and PS4 System Software Updates release globally today

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Our next PS5 and PS4 system software updates are rolling out globally today, so we wanted to provide a quick look at some of the new features. We’re also glad to share new details on Variable Refresh Rate for PS5 on HDMI 2.1-compatible TVs and PC monitors, which is planned to release in the months ahead. 

New features for PS5 and PS4

Thanks to support from our beta participants, we’re introducing some fan-requested features to our global community today, like the ability to create or join Open and Closed Parties on PS5 and PS4 consoles. On PS5, we’re also bringing UI enhancements to Game Base and Trophy cards, as well as accessibility features like mono audio for headphones.

You can read more about these system update features here.

For a refresher on PS5 features like how to apply game presets on your console, pin videos and apps to your screen while you play, or share your screen with friends, check out the new “Pro Tips” cards in the Control Center.

PS App and PS Remote Play enhancements

Starting later today, we’re gradually rolling out the ability for PS App users to create or join Open and Closed Parties through the app as well. We’ve also updated the PS App Game Base UI to make it easier to access the Friends, Parties and messaging features, delivering a consistent player experience with PS5.

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