GRcade

I finally picked up Horizon Forbidden West on Friday for £32 from Argos to play on the PS5 and it got me thinking, there used to be a time I’d always buy games at launch. But nowadays with having both Game Pass and PlayStation Plus I seem to be happier to play launch games on there and then wait for anything else when it drops considerably in price.

Anyone else in the same boat or do you like picking up big launches on launch day even if they’re not on the Game Pass style services?

I don't buy nearly as many games as I used to, maybe 1 full priced game a month? Partly due to game pass, partly due to not being single any more...

On Xbox I don’t buy that much now, unless it’s really cheap or unlikely to come to the service for a year (like F1 22 for example) or something that I really want to play.

Obviously Nintendo games I don’t have a choice in the matter, they rarely go what you could call cheap and there’s no subscription service.

Has Gamepass/Playstation Plus Changed Your Buying Habits?

No. Whilst I don't have either system, my habits have been the same for as long as I can remember.

Buy a game at the price I am willing to pay for it, even if that includes waiting months/years and then maximise the value for money I get from it. The last game I bought on day one was Super Mario Odyssey (not counting 3D All-Stars due to the stupid limited availability element to that release).

Absolutely, I used to buy quite a few indie games on steam. Now if they're on game pass I can play them there. Often they have little replay value so I don't buy them once they leave.

I have a PS5 but I don't have an xbox. PS+ has never offered me much - occasionally I have played a game from it, but most of the time I'm either not interested or already bought the game earlier. My PS+ sub expired a month or so ago but more recently my partner has upgraded to PS+ Extra so we shall see how that changes our approach - I've already played Stray from the service and will be playing Returnal next, which I held off buying not because I knew it was free on the service but because the price hasn't come down enough since launch. Sony pushing prices up is the real reason I've bought less for my PS5, not PS+!

It's definitely had some impact for sure.

I've never been someone who purchases a huge number of games each year, preferring to target a handful of key releases and devote my time to them - I would say I usually have maybe only 2 games each year that I'm really looking forward to and I would buy them at launch. This aspect of my habits hasn't really changed, take this year for example - Elden Ring and Xenoblade 3 are the two "big releases" for me and I bought them both at launch as per usual.

What has changed is what I do with my gaming time/money in between these key releases - in the past I would have picked up some smaller new releases, maybe grabbed something high profile from a few years ago that passed me by, or even just spent time re-playing older games that I already own. Now however, thanks for Plus Plus and Game Pass I find myself spending those filler times just dipping into the catalogue available and giving stuff a shot, as such I'm probably spending less money than I did back in the day.

The other change is that games which would once have been pushing for "you need to buy this!" status are now more likely to fall into "ah just wait, it'll probably be on the service you pay for within 6-12 months" territory. For example Horizon Forbidden West was pretty high on my PS5 wishlist, but I held off at launch and I'm pretty sure I'll probably be able to play it on Plus within a year so I'm happy to wait now.

I subscribe to PlayStation Plus at the basic (Essential) level and that's purely because I want to have online access rather then the "game loan" aspect. I'm not crazy about the idea of these schemes were you pay to temporarily play games that other people have chosen for you*; I'm a bit old-school and prefer to buy games to keep (or, nowdays, until they're turned off at an arbitrary time in the future).

But, as Orange said:

OrangeRKN wrote:...Sony pushing prices up is the real reason I've bought less for my PS5, not PS+!

This is very much my position, too. Unless it's Fallout 76 v2, Final Fantasy XIV v2 or Return of Balan, I'm not gonna pay seventy quid and upwards for a game. This is the main factor for my changing games-buying habits in recent times.

As I've said before, I find it incredible that Nintendo - known, of course, for high game prices - now offer some of the cheapest first-party games on console. I don't expect this to be the case for their next system!

* Deliberately harsh summary; I know about MS "launching on Game Pass" and the attractions that offers :-).

I genuinely can't remember the last time I bought a game with my own money.

Nope. I usually already own the big games that go up on Plus and I don't have Game Pass.

Despite owning a PS5 and Series X, I subscribe to neither service. I prefer to own games and get them when they are at a price I will happily pay, only games I buy these days day one are Nintendo releases as they very rarely drop in price significantly.

It has now, yes. I would have bought Stray and WRC 10 but they’re both on PS Plus Extra, I owned Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2, Crash Bandicoot 4 and Ghost of Tsushima on PS5 but before I even got round to playing them they’ve also appeared on the service.

When I had an Xbox One X I barely purchased anything outright and just used Game Pass.

In Sony’s case, it’s £60 for one game at launch vs £80ish for PlayStation Plus Extra, which at the very least is 1 game a month.

Even Apple Arcade, which I’m still yet to pay anything for (in total I’ll have had it a whole year for absolutely nothing) has a lot of decent B-tier games like Beyond a Steel Sky and The Pathless, and greatly improves mobile by killing adverts and other shady practices.

There’s the odd title I’ll still purchase or get at launch but it’s a rarity. Lake was the most recent game I bought on PS5 from Argos, but in that instance it was because I had vouchers I needed to use.

With Gamepass, I kinda get the Netflix feeling of being overwhelmed by the content. I've certainly spent less since having it but probably played less / spent less time on a game. It's like if I brought a game outright, I want to play it through fully to get my money's worth. There's this weird kind of too much choice and not the thing you're hankering for feeling to it all.

I don't buy games anymore at all. Game pass too good

I bought my XboneX from a colleague about 3, maybe 4 years ago. In that time I've purchased some DLC for Planet Coaster, and literally nothing else.

My gaming habits have changed over time. I'm happy to wait for games to go cheap, because I always have a backlog of games to catch up with (both years of PS Plus and purchased games). With the expanded PS Plus Extra, I've got a bunch more games to add to that backlog, so I suspect the service will result in less game purchases. It certainly gives value if you're happy to spread your gaming time over the games available on the service rather than pick the games out, so I suspect it will save me money over time. I suspect I'll pick up the odd game on sale going forward, but full price? Nah!

Only got PS Plus Extra for the first time this month and, have to say, it will be changing my buying habits in the near future. I already own and have finished a lot of the first party titles; but, as more stuff gets added and depending what gets added, I'll def be signing up again rather than buying some games outright. This month was perfect for Stray (one and done type of game), Maneater (for my son), the Tsushima DLC and Everybodys Golf; and, also got to play (and discount) some other games I'd been considering getting. It's been well worth the 11 quid (essentially the same price as the Tsushima DLC on sale!).

Not really, life and cost has stopped by buying habits in honesty.

I find the amount of games available on Playstation Plus overwhelming, there's arguments about what is good or not, but I get a bit of anxiety in choosing something and then choosing something else after a few minutes instead.

Its changed my buying and gaming habits in that I actually use my PS5 now. I will sporadically dip in and out of Premium, when there is a game I actually want to play - this month I played Stray, Shadow of the Colossus, Detroit Become Human then mucked about with some platformers. Next time there's a specific game I want to play, I'll sign up for a month then probably discover some more platformers I'll enjoy.

Premium is very good value (and I understand Gamepass is even better) but I do wonder how sustainable this all is long term and whether streaming services will become atomised like TV streaming services.

I exclusivley buy games in sales if I ever buy one. GPU is great obviously, I mean, I won't ever buy an Bethesda game again and I won't be buying anything from Activision-Blizzard either because I know they will be incoming. Same with Ubisoft, with Ubisoft+ confirmed I'm holding off, that said, AC Valhalla (and the recent AC games are superb) as is Imortals Phoenix Rising, which, hits GP next week.

All the big games I play, Halo Infinite, Forza H5, Sea of Thieves, Gears 5 and Doom Eternal etc are all on GP, I don't own them.