Sony has temporarily stopped customers from stacking PlayStation Now and PlayStation Plus subscriptions, ahead of the new PlayStation Plus launch.
Sony has reportedly stopped the stacking of PlayStation subscription codes, seemingly to prevent people from receiving the PlayStation Plus Premium cheap upgrade route. PlayStation Plus is receiving an overhaul in June, which will roll PlayStation Now into the service, as well as offer a method for playing retro PlayStation games on modern systems.
The new PlayStation Plus system will be split into three tiers. The basic tier is PlayStation Plus Essential, which is the same as the current iteration of PlayStation Plus. The second tier is PlayStation Plus Extra, which is the same as PlayStation Now, except that it will start adding PS5 games in the future, including Returnal. The third (and most expensive) tier is PlayStation Plus Premium, which will let subscribers play select PS1, PS2, and PSP titles. It’s unclear what retro games will be available as part of PlayStation Plus, though it seems that the Syphon Filter series is coming to PS+ Premium in the future, thanks to a recent age rating.
Sony recently announced that people with both a PlayStation Plus and PlayStation Now subscription will be bumped up to PlayStation Premium for free when the new service launches, with their new subscription matching the longer of the original two. It seems Sony is now preventing people from stacking subscriptions to take advantage of this deal. According to a PlayStation support email received by Push Square, Sony has temporarily disabled the ability to add PlayStation Plus and PlayStation Now subscriptions.
“I have checked the voucher and your account and can conclude that as of now there is a temporarily deactivated function for PS Plus/PS Now subscriptions which does not allow for stacking of either membership on already active memberships. This is only temporary and as soon as we have more information about we will let our players know, for more information regarding news for the new launch of our service please check out our blog.”
Fans had been seeking out PlayStation Now subscriptions to make the most out of this deal, as Sony had already attempted to close this loophole in the past. Sony’s original plan was for PlayStation Now codes to be removed from stores and to disable the option to stack twelve-month subscriptions on digital storefronts. The issue is that there are still third-party sellers with PlayStation Now codes, and someone only would only need to get a three-month code, then boost their PlayStation Plus subscription to take advantage of the new deal.
The fact that subscription stacking has been described as temporary by Sony support suggests that people will be able to claim the codes again in the future (likely to boost their PlayStation Plus Essential and PlayStation Plus Extra subscriptions). This is a particularly low move from Sony, especially considering how difficult it is to acquire PlayStation Now subscriptions, making it extremely hard to pull off the exploit in the first place. The legality of removing the ability to fulfill paid subscriptions is also questionable. The PlayStation Plus tiered system is only a few months away and it seems Sony wants to shut down as many people from taking them up on their offer as possible.
The new version of PlayStation Plus will be released in North America on June 13 and in Europe on June 22, 2022.
Source: Push Square
Scott has been writing for Screen Rant since 2016 and regularly contributes to The Gamer. He has previously written articles and video scripts for websites like Cracked, Dorkly, Topless Robot, and TopTenz. A graduate of Edge Hill University in the UK, Scott started out as a film student before moving into journalism. It turned out that wasting a childhood playing video games, reading comic books, and watching movies could be used for finding employment, regardless of what any career advisor might tell you. Scott specializes in gaming and has loved the medium since the early ‘90s when his first console was a ZX Spectrum that used to take 40 minutes to load a game from a tape cassette player to a black and white TV set. Scott now writes game reviews for Screen Rant and The Gamer, as well as news reports, opinion pieces, and game guides. He can be contacted on LinkedIn.
