Look, I’ll be the first to admit this is probably stupid. Here I am, a 52-year-old construction foreman who didn’t even touch a video game until his late thirties, and I’m paying for both Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PlayStation Plus Premium every month. That’s about $35 burning a hole in my wallet monthly, which could buy me a decent dinner or contribute to my retirement fund like a responsible adult. But here we are, and since I’ve made these questionable financial decisions, I figure I might as well share what I’ve learned from maintaining both subscriptions for the past couple years.
My daughter got me into this mess, honestly. When she was trying to get me caught up on gaming history back in 2010, she kept talking about these subscription services that were starting to pop up. “Dad, you can play hundreds of games for one monthly fee instead of buying them individually.” Made sense from a value perspective, especially for someone like me who was essentially cramming forty years of missed gaming into a decade. Problem is, I apparently have no self-control when it comes to digital storefronts and ended up with subscriptions to everything.
The math should make Game Pass an obvious winner. Sixteen-something a month gets you over 400 games, plus all the new Microsoft stuff drops right into the service on day one. When Starfield came out, I was playing it at midnight without dropping seventy bucks. Same with Forza Horizon 5, which I probably put 40 hours into. If I’d bought those two games alone, I’d have paid for almost a year of Game Pass. On paper, it’s a no-brainer.
But here’s the thing about having access to 400 games – you don’t actually play 400 games. I downloaded probably 30 titles last year and finished maybe four of them. It’s like having a buffet where you take one bite of everything and leave most of it on your plate. My completion rate has gone to hell since getting these subscriptions. Before, when I’d drop $50 on a game, I felt obligated to see it through even if it was mediocre. Now? If something doesn’t grab me in the first hour, there’s always something else to try.
PlayStation’s approach is different. Their basic tier just gives you online multiplayer and a couple free games monthly, which honestly feels pretty stingy compared to what Microsoft’s doing. But bump up to Extra for fifteen bucks and you get a decent library of PS4 and PS5 games. Go all the way to Premium at eighteen bucks and you get access to older PlayStation games, some streaming options, and game trials.
The Premium tier is where Sony gets weird. They’ve got all these PS3 games you can stream, but the input lag makes precision platformers basically unplayable. Tried revisiting some of the Ratchet & Clank games from that era and kept missing jumps that should’ve been easy. Meanwhile, Game Pass’s cloud streaming has gotten surprisingly good – I can play Forza on my phone during lunch breaks at job sites when the connection’s decent.
What really separates these services is how they handle new games. Microsoft puts everything first-party straight into Game Pass. Sony makes you wait. God of War Ragnarök took over a year to hit PlayStation Plus, and by then I’d already caved and bought it because I couldn’t stand waiting to see what happened next in that story. My patience isn’t what it used to be, especially for sequels to games I loved.
The discovery aspect has been the real surprise benefit for me. Before these services, I stuck to safe bets – action games, RPGs, stuff I knew I’d probably like based on reviews and recommendations. Now I’ll try anything because there’s no financial risk. Ended up loving Hi-Fi Rush, which I never would’ve bought outright because rhythm games seemed too weird for an old guy like me. Also discovered I absolutely hate most roguelikes, despite everyone on the internet insisting they’re amazing.
Storage management has become this whole secondary hobby I never wanted. My PS5 filled up fast, forcing me to buy an expansion drive that cost almost as much as six months of subscription fees. Now I’m constantly shuffling games on and off the system like some kind of digital librarian. Games under 20 gigs get to stay installed longer because they’re less painful to re-download when I want to revisit them.
The family aspect has been worth it though. My daughter and I can both access everything without paying double, and we’ve found games to play together that neither of us would’ve sought out individually. It Takes Two was perfect for this – showed up on Game Pass, we tried it on a whim, ended up having a blast playing through the whole thing over a weekend.
Where things get messy is deciding what to actually play. Used to be simple – I owned maybe ten games at any given time, played through them one by one. Now I’ve got access to hundreds and spend more time scrolling through menus than actually gaming. It’s analysis paralysis on steroids. Some nights I’ll browse for twenty minutes, download something, play for ten minutes, then go watch TV instead because choosing felt like too much work.
If I’m being honest about value, Game Pass wins on pure numbers. More games, better streaming, day-one releases, works across PC and console. PlayStation Plus feels like they’re still figuring out what they want to be. The game trials are nice in theory but limited in practice. The classic games library is cool for nostalgia but the streaming quality issues make actually playing them frustrating.
But here’s where it gets complicated for someone like me who came to gaming late – PlayStation’s library skews toward games I missed during my non-gaming years. Their selection of PS4 hits has been great for catching up on stuff everyone was talking about while I was still figuring out what a DualShock controller was. Game Pass has more variety, but PlayStation Plus has more of the specific gaps in my gaming education.
The smart financial move would be rotating subscriptions. Sign up for Game Pass when they add something I want to play, cancel after a month or two, switch to PlayStation Plus for a while, repeat as needed. But I’m lazy and these companies know it. Auto-renewal is the enemy of rational subscription management. I keep telling myself I’ll optimize this system and never quite get around to it.
My construction crew thinks this whole thing is hilarious. Here’s this guy who didn’t own a game console until he was 40, now paying monthly fees to access more games than he could play in ten lifetimes. They’re not wrong to laugh. It’s absolutely ridiculous from an outside perspective. But then again, they spend money on stuff I think is stupid, so we’re even.
The real question isn’t which service is better – it’s whether you need either one. If you’re a focused gamer who plays one title at a time until completion, buying games individually probably makes more sense. These services are designed for people with wandering attention spans and FOMO about missing out on games. They’ve turned gaming into a sampling hobby rather than a deep-dive experience.
That said, for someone like me who’s still catching up on decades of gaming history, having access to huge libraries has been educational. I’ve learned what genres I like, which developers make games that click with me, what eras of gaming design still hold up versus what’s better left in the past. It’s been an expensive education, but an education nonetheless.
So which one should you pick if you’re only getting one? Game Pass if you want variety and don’t mind Microsoft’s ecosystem. PlayStation Plus Extra if you’re committed to Sony’s platform and want quality over quantity. And whatever you do, don’t be like me and get both unless you enjoy the specific type of financial masochism that comes with paying for more entertainment than you could possibly consume. Though I have to admit, it does feel pretty great having options when I want them, even if I’m terrible at actually making decisions about what to play.
Timothy discovered retro gaming at forty and never looked back. A construction foreman by day and collector by night, he writes from a fresh, nostalgia-free angle—exploring classic games with adult curiosity, honest takes, and zero childhood bias.
