In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past couple of console generations, Microsoft and Sony have been competing against each other for years with each company’s own take on home consoles. Indeed, the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4 are each products of healthy competition and that’s perhaps no more apparent than in each console’s take on online services, deemed Xbox Live and PlayStation Network respectively. To get the most out of each service, including online play with friends and access to cloud storage, you can’t just stop there. You’ll have to go another mile and purchase either Xbox Live Gold or PS Plus.
Does the benefit of having access to online features outweigh the negative of having to pay another charge on top of your monthly internet bill? The answer to this is very subjective, though Microsoft and Sony do try to assuage buyer’s remorse by including curated games with their services free of charge. Dubbed Games with Gold and the Instant Games Collection respectively, we’ll break down which offered the best value according to the games offered throughout 2017 so as to better inform you which console and service is right for you. Keep in mind that in each case, games are offered on a monthly basis.
