Sony will let you get away with this PS Plus loophole

The PS Plus logo
(Image credit: Sony)

If you bought and stacked up a ton of PS Now subscriptions to get 50% off the upcoming PS Plus rollout, it looks like you beat the system. Congrats!

Following the announcement of the overhaul, deals maestro @Wario64 spotted a loophole that essentially let players get an annual PS Plus Premium subscription for half price. 

The revamped PS Plus service will migrate current PS Now subscribers to the top tier PS Plus Premium membership. There's a huge price discrepancy between the two, so savvy shoppers swarmed to take advantage of the situation before Sony shut it down. But it looks like anyone who partook is going to make out like a bandit.     

Screenshot of a PlayStation Plus customer service email highlighting text that says paid stacked subscriptions will be honored

(Image credit: ResetEra)

A screenshot of an email reportedly being sent out to PlayStation Plus subscribers was posted to ResetEra. It appears to confirm that members will "keep any stacked subscription period" they've already paid for (highlighted in red).

As a member myself, I also got a PS Plus email update, although mine didn't read the same as the one above. Sony hasn't weighed in to say it won't honor paid stacked subscriptions, so there's no reason to doubt the validity of the email. But it is odd that it's not the same one being out across the board.   

How did the PS Plus loophole work?

Sony confirmed that existing PS Plus members will get moved over to the base PS Plus Essential plan. Meanwhile, PS Now members will transition to the top-tier PS Plus Premium service. 

PS Now comes in at $59.99 / £49.99 per year, while PS Plus Premium is priced at $119.99 / £99.99 per year. You can see where this is going.

Shortly after news broke of the restructured plan rolling out this summer, people rushed to snap up and stack up as many PS Now annual subscriptions as possible. Some managed to horde up to 10-years' worth of memberships before Sony figured out what was happening and shut the operation down.

That means they bagged multiple annual subscriptions to the most expensive and all-encompassing PS Plus tier for half price. 

We've reached out to Sony again to get clarification on whether it'll honor stacked subscriptions, but it seems that this will most likely be the case for now. So, if you were quick off the mark, you've potentially saved yourself hundreds of dollars for the foreseeable future. Let's just hope you don't get the sudden urge to ditch your PS5 for an Xbox Series X five years into the console cycle.   

Shabana Arif
News Editor, TechRadar Gaming

Shabana has been writing about games for almost a decade now, as well as covering tech, politics, food, and other random tidbits at Gizmodo UK. She's stepped outside of news every now and then to write game guides, and always appreciates a DM if she's helped get you out of a pickle. During her time freelancing, you may have spotted her words at VG24/7, GamesRadar, and IGN. She's also held the position of news editor at Gizmodo UK, T3, and The Sun Online.