PlayStation Plus is about to celebrate 15 years this coming June 29, after the service was first launched on June 29, 2010. We've already heard about some of the celebratory actions the company is taking to commemorate the milestone that went along with the announcement of the July 2025 monthly PS Plus Essential games.
Also part of the commemoration, Nick Maguire, vice president of global services at Sony Interactive Entertainment, spoke with Game File about the previous 15 years and where the service currently is.
After SIE president and chief executive officer Hideaki Nishino revealed that more players are choosing the PS Plus Extra and Premium tiers, Maguire backed up Nishino's comments, and added that "Engagement in Plus has never been higher than it is right now," which is due in part to the restructuring of the service PlayStation announced in 2022.
The switch from the old PS Plus model to the current tiered model "surpassed our expectations," Maguire said. "It's really given us a new way to reach the audiences with these games, and it's given new value to partners to find new people to play their titles. And just the engagement we see from it is really positive, in terms of the number of people choosing that Catalog and coming back month after month."
Magurie did not talk about how the prices have gone up, only saying "I think we just want to invest in Plus. We want to invest in the proposition, bring more value to users. And we're seeing high growth in Extra, Premium."
When Nishino was asked about the price increases just a couple of weeks ago, he said the increases were part of Sony "increasing value we bring to the players," and it's clear from how many players continue to choose the Extra and Premium tiers that the increases aren't exactly hurting subscriber numbers.
On a separate matter, Maguire did make it clear that Sony has no intention of adding its first-party, PlayStation Studios-developed titles to the PlayStation Plus service on day one. Instead, PlayStation will continue to add third-party titles on day one where it sees a good fit, like how FBC: Firebreak recently launched into the service.
"We've sort of stayed true to our strategy across the board, where we're not looking to put games in day and date. Our strategy of finding four or five independent day-and-date titles - and using that to complement our strategy of bringing games in when they're 12, 18 months old or older - that balance for us is working really well across the platform."
And, if the opportunities are there, Sony wouldn't stop at just four or five independent games. "If there were six or seven great opportunities, then we would go for them as well," Maguire added.
Maguire also declined to comment on whether he thought that adding first-party multiplayer games like Concord to the service would be a benefit, and if Concord might've had a better chance were it launched directly into the PS Plus service.
"I think Plus has proven itself to be a great way to introduce new players to franchises. So I think there's always going to be a moment for any game where there's the right time for it to go into Plus, when it's ready to reach a wider audience or...to find new fans or new parts of our platform that it hasn't already reached," said Maguire.
Beyond the price increases, and the lack of first-party games added to the service day one, Game File also had Maguire address, as much as he was willing, the other big topic of conversation players have around the service, games being removed from the catalog.
He doesn't directly address the removal of older first-party titles, like how the Resistance games were recently taken off the PS Plus Game Catalog list, but said "We've got 80 collections of games across the catalog, so we want to keep it fresh and bring in new games. Sometimes that means taking a few games out at the same time to keep the proposition interesting and help people find new games as well."
The modern day subscription service is shaking up its offerings all the time. Whether its PlayStation Plus, Xbox Game Pass, Netflix, etc., things are added and taken away from them on a regular basis. But it remains mind-boggling that PlayStation would remove its first-party titles, especially when they're games that are difficult to play any other way if you don't have original hardware.
At the very least, Maguire says that he does read the comments players leave on PS Plus-specific posts, and that he thinks "It can be helpful to understand where people are at, and, if we can, take that into our learnings in the future."
"I think we'll continue to listen and learn about what gamers want and try to bring more value in for them. We're very proud of what we've delivered in the last few years. And excited to sort of see the response and the engagement we get from players coming in."
About the author: David has been writing about videogames, technology, and culture since 2020, with a focus on reporting daily news across multiple publications, including GameDaily.Biz, GameSkinny, and PlayStation Universe before joining Wccftech in 2025. David started contributing as Canada/US reporter for Wccftech's gaming section in 2025. Besides being up-to-date on the industry's movements, he loves interviewing developers, reviewing games, and writing intricate essays about the symbolism and layered meanings to be found in rich narratives as he's done for publications like GamesIndustry.Biz, LostInCult, and others. Outside of games he loves movies, music, theatre, his hometown, and his family, though not necessarily in that order.
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