PS Plus vs. Games with Gold: Who Offered Better Value in 2017?

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.

Total Number of Games

Before tallying each service’s total amount of games offered this year, it’s important to put in perspective how free games on each platform are divided in terms of hardware. Microsoft’s Games with Gold offerings on Xbox One include two free games native to the platform and two games native to last generation’s Xbox 360. While technically each console gets two titles each, all four are available via Xbox One’s backwards compatibility feature. This means that in reality Xbox One users are getting four free games to play on their system a month despite the possibility that some of these may be much older than others.

Sony’s PS Plus Instant Games Collection is much more straightforward, though there are some titles that are available across PlayStation platforms. In theory the PS3, PS Vita, and PS4 each get two free games. Some of these titles, however, are available to be played both on Vita and/or PS4, though technically may have originated on one or the other. This means that while one offering fits into the category as the free Vita game for a specific month, it can simultaneously be considered as a free game for PS4 users as well.

Keeping all of this and the consoles you own in mind, this year saw Xbox Live Gold give 48 titles to Xbox One users, all of which are compatible to play on the system. PS Plus’s Instant Games Collection saw 74 titles offered across PS3, Vita, and PS4. When strictly considering PS4 users, that number drops somewhat drastically down to 41, though this doesn’t include the Collection’s introduction of VR games into the mix.

Should you own an eighth generation console solely to play eighth generation games, each service is fairly equal in the amount of titles they provide, though Xbox One owners do get a bit more bang for their buck. This being said, should you own a PS4 and PSVR or Vita, the PS Plus Instant Games Collection is a much more sound investment when only considering numbers. Ultimately the real winner here is you, as you’re getting tons of games you probably won’t have the time to play regardless.

Total Monetary Value

Seeing as how a full year’s subscription to access either Games with Gold or the Instant Games Collection doesn’t come cheap, you’d best expect that each service offers users frugal incentive to keep them coming back for more. Both Microsoft and Sony fight an ongoing battle against the PC gaming space to justify a charge for internet services, not to mention the sometimes ridiculous discounts that digital PC storefronts Steam and GOG offer. Though it can be argued that a lot of incentive in buying a premium online subscription for the Xbox One or the PS4 also comes in the form of each platform’s respective sales, the real draw is in the amount they save users in free games every month.

Keep in mind that the following numbers are indicative of game value upon their initial introduction to each respective service. Games with Gold’s free games netted users a combined retail total of $1,029.52 this year whereas the Instant Games Collection netted users a combined retail total of $1287.25. This amounts to roughly $21 a title for each Xbox One game in Games with Gold and $17 a title for each PS4, PS Vita, and PS3 games in the Instant Games Collection. When only taking PS4 games into account, the value jumps to $31 a title.

In this case it’s very easy to claim that Games with Gold is the winner when purely taking eighth generation titles into consideration. If you’re looking for incentive to save money, the Xbox One and its online service provides a better case per title than does Sony with just the PS4.

Average Ratings

If you’re a person that likes to play games but really cares about what you do with your money, you’ll probably derive a lot of value out of gaming for cheap. If this is the case, you’ve probably read the last entry on this list and may have already decided which service offers better incentive for purchase. There’s one crucial component that’s missing in all this, however. It lies in the quality of the games offered.

Unfortunately it’s not uncommon that lackluster titles find their ways onto either Games with Gold or PS Plus’ Instant Games Collection. This being said, when great games arrive on either service, a lot of fanfare is made and supporters from each camp sing their prasies until the next month’s offerings come around. Just look at this month’s reactions to PS Plus’s offerings and compare them to fan reactions in October.

When solely taking critical reception into consideration, Games with Gold managed to score an average 77.19 across all the titles it offered for the year. PS Plus’ Instant Games Collection, on the other hand, managed to score an average rating of 71.3. Though it seems like the Instant Games Collection’s score should be higher due to the inclusion of widely acclaimed titles like Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain and Just Cause 3, it seems as though subpar offerings on the PS3 and Vita brought that average down.

Despite the disparity between the amount of games being offered, the victory here again goes to Games with Gold.

Who Wins?

Xbox Live’s Games with Gold makes enough of a case for itself to offer a little more incentive for purchase than does PS Plus’ Instant Games Collection. If you’re looking at things from purely an eighth generation perspective, Games with Gold offers more in the form of what you can play on a singular device. The Instant Games Collection does a good job at providing a myriad of titles to play across PlayStation’s ecosystem of hardware, but in doing so takes away from the PS4 to give more to the Vita and PS3.

It’s worth noting that should you have a Vita and still play on PS3, PS Plus still provides a ton of incentive to take part in its service. This isn’t even mentioning the fact that you’re simultaneously building your PS4 library of games to play later on once you’re back home.

Considering both of these and comparing them to the PC landscape, each still makes a solid case for purchase to access online capabilities, though as years pass that argument will begin to fade. Microsoft and Sony shouldn’t rest on their laurels and find new ways to make their subscriptions attractive lest they start losing their followings to Gabe Newell’s machinations.