PlayStation announced that it would no longer charge players who bought PS Plus subscriptions at a discounted rate a higher fee when they upgrade to PlayStation Plus Extra or PlayStation Plus Premium.
This announcement came via the official Ask PlayStation support Twitter account after reports of the PS Plus upgrade issue spread over the past couple of days. “Due to a technical error, players in Asia who have previously purchased a PlayStation Plus membership at a discount have been incorrectly charged for their upgrade pricing,” the tweet says. “This error has been fixed and impacted players will receive a credit. We thank you for your patience.”
Due to a technical error, players in Asia who have previously purchased a PlayStation Plus membership at a discount have been incorrectly charged for their upgrade pricing. This error has been fixed and impacted players will receive a credit. We thank you for your patience.
— Ask PlayStation (@AskPlayStation) May 25, 2022
As that tweet mentions, players trying to upgrade to these new versions of PS Plus were the people who first encountered this issue. The two new tiers of PlayStation Plus debuted in Asian markets on May 23, ahead of a rollout in Japan, North America, and Europe throughout the month of June. As players can convert their previous PS Plus and PS Now subscriptions to get PlayStation Plus Premium or Extra, many players bought PS Plus subscriptions at discounted rates so that they would end up technically paying less overall for the $120 a year service.
Unfortunately, when these players went to upgrade on May 23, the PlayStation Store required them to pay back that discount if they wanted to upgrade. So, if someone got a year of PS Plus for $45 instead of $60, they’d have to pay $15 on top of the already more expensive free for Extra or Premium if they wanted to upgrade. While a VGC report suggested that this move was intentional, Sony is crediting this issue to a “technical error.”
The early days of any subscription service are typically fraught with technical issues like this. Hopefully, Sony can fix PlayStation Plus Premium’s key issues before it rolls it out to new markets like North America.