The company is blaming this increase on "ongoing market conditions."
By Lawrence Bonk May 18, 2026 1:58 pm EST
Sony Sony has raised prices of the PS Plus subscription service. A one-month subscription to the Essential tier now costs $11 per month, an increase of $1. Additionally, a three-month subscription just went up to $28, an increase of $3. It looks like annual subscribers are off the hook for now, and the wording of Sony's post on X announcing the change makes it sound like the Extra and Premium tiers are also impacted. This only impacts new subscribers, except in Turkey and India.
The company is blaming this increase on "ongoing market conditions." When a tech company says this in 2026, it's typically referring to Trump-adjacent tariffs or AI-based memory crunch. However, PS Plus is a digital subscription service that provides a handful of monthly game titles to download. Members do get cloud save storage and online multiplayer access, both of which require servers that could be more expensive to operate nowadays. Maybe that's it.
Starting May 20, PlayStation Plus prices for new customers will increase in select regions. Due to ongoing market conditions, prices will start at $10.99 USD / €9.99 EUR / £7.99 GBP for 1-month subscriptions and $27.99 USD / €27.99 EUR / £21.99 GBP for 3-month subscriptions....
— PlayStation (@PlayStation) May 18, 2026
We don't know if annual plans will be getting a price increase in the near future, but the company only mentioned the one- and three-month plans in the announcement. Engadget has reached out to Sony and will update this post when we hear back. The company jacked up annual plans by as much as $40 back in 2023.
Microsoft recently raised prices of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate all the way to $30 per month, which rightfully annoyed many players. New Microsoft Gaming CEO Asha Sharma quickly reversed course on this.
As for Sony, a monthly increase of $1 isn't the biggest deal in the world. The same cannot be said of console price increases. A standard PS5 with a disc drive now costs a whopping $650. That's a mighty big price of entry to even get started with PS Plus.
