2023 was a good year for both Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Plus, with Microsoft and Sony putting plenty of quality content on both subscription services, but with the year now behind us, which offered the best overall value? Well, the folks at The Loadout actually did the math, tallying up the value of the games added to both Xbox Game Pass and PS Plus this year, with the latter arguably coming out on top.
If you signed up for the PS Plus Extra tier for the entirety of 2023, you got 205 games (37 monthly Essential-tier titles and 168 Extra-tier catalog titles) worth a sum total of $7,459.59. Not bad! That total went even higher if you signed up for PS Plus Premium, which added an additional 46 “classic” titles bringing to the overall tally for 2023 to $ 8,030.13 worth of games. So yes, this kind of underlines what most people already know – Premium isn’t really that much of a value-add, and PS Plus Extra is the sweet spot.
Meanwhile, if you signed up for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, which is the most comparable subscription tier to PS Plus Extra price-wise, you got 150 games worth a sum total of $4,935.66 in 2024. Looking at the Xbox/PC split, there were $4,869.61 worth of games added for Xbox consoles, and $4,769.64 worth of games added for PC specifically.
Of course, just tallying up the number of games released for Game Pass and PS Plus respectively doesn’t give you the full value proposition of either service. Most notably, Game Pass offers first-party titles on Day 1, which PS Plus does not (although Sony’s service does get some third-party Day 1 releases). Still, this breakdown shows Game Pass isn’t as far ahead of PS Plus as you might think – in terms of quantity and overall basic dollar value, Sony is actually offering the better deal.
Xbox Game Pass Ultimate costs $17 a month and PlayStation Plus Extra will set you back $15 a month. Which game subscription services did you sign up for in 2023? Were you satisfied with what you got for your money?
