After users in Asia found extra charges for their PlayStation Plus upgrades this week, Sony says that this was a "technical error" and will be refunding affected players.
The upgraded PlayStation Plus is now available through most of Asia, ahead of the worldwide rollout in June. Many players who had purchased PS Plus subscriptions at a discount have reported being asked to pay the entire value of the discount back before being allowed to upgrade to one of the new, more expensive tiers.
In an email from PlayStation's Hong Kong support branch (posted to ResetEra and translated by VGC), a Sony rep suggested that the extra charge was a matter of policy. "Since you purchased PlayStation Plus at a discounted price at the time of membership, there are two PlayStation Plus memberships that cannot enjoy other discounts: PlayStation Plus membership bought with a discount [or] PlayStation Plus membership redeemed with redemption code.
"Therefore, if you need to upgrade to Level 2 or 3 Premium membership, you will need to make up the difference between the previous discounted price and the normal price."
Then, earlier today, players began to report that upgrade costs were dropping again, and now Sony has made it official: no extra charges if you're upgrading from a PS Plus subscription purchased at a discount.
"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," a post from AskPlayStation on Twitter explains. "This error has been fixed and impacted players will receive a credit. We thank you for your patience."
Players remain skeptical about whether this was actually an error, as the support email certainly made it sound like the pricier upgrade was going to be Sony's policy. Either way, it's good to see the issue resolved ahead of the subscription's global rollout.
Existing PS Plus benefits will be available in the Essential tier at the same price as always. The Extra tier adds access to a catalog of PS4 and PS5 games, while the Premium tier gets you all that plus a selection of classic games from the PS1, PS2, PS3, and PSP, trial versions of new games, and access to a catalog of cloud streaming games.
The service is set to hit Japan on June 2, the Americas on June 13, and Australia, New Zealand, and Europe on June 23.
Check out the PS Plus Premium games lineup has already been revealed.
