PlayStation Plus disables subscription stacking—for now
Sony has updated its PlayStation Plus FAQ to confirm it’s temporarily stopped subscribers from loading additional subscription time onto current memberships, a process known as stacking.
The announcement confirms anecdotal reports from earlier in the week, when subscribers found they were unable to stack additional time onto their subscriptions. At the time, Sony only noted that this limitation would be temporary.
Now, the official FAQ makes the situation much clearer. In a question directly addressing the situation, Sony writes: “If you currently have a PlayStation Plus or PlayStation Now membership, due to changes we are making to the service prior to launch, you won’t be able to redeem a voucher code for that service until your existing membership expires and deactivates, or after the new PlayStation Plus service launches in your area, whichever happens first. Rest assured that your voucher code is still valid.”
Though Sony doesn’t explicitly say so, it seems likely this change is designed to prevent a loophole allowing people to upgrade their PlayStation Plus membership at a steep discount. When the upcoming relaunch takes effect, the company plans give subscribers to both PlayStation Plus and PlayStation Now, the soon-to-be-defunct standalone game-streaming service, access to the new highest tier of PS Plus, Premium, for the entire duration of whichever membership last longer. If you could still stack memberships, you’d be able to save a ton of money.
By way of example, if today you could buy five years of PS Plus membership and three months of PlayStation Now and load it onto your account, you’d get an almost five-year subscription to PlayStation Now Premium for roughly $325. After the relaunch, five years of Premium will cost you around $600.
The new PlayStation Plus launches in June, with different dates for the U.S. and Europe. It will apparently also include demos for nearly all big games, though there’s some uncertainty around how that will work.
