PS Plus vs Games With Gold – Which Is The Best Value For Your Money?

With the market in gaming being tight as ever, both Sony and Microsoft started their own branded game giveaways, Playstation Plus and Games with Gold respectively. To opt in to this deal you have to be part of their $60 a year service, so while not completely free it’s still another thing that makes it better to be a paying customer. As every business move from these companies does, there is much debate as to which one is the better deal and who gives away the better games in general.

Playstation announced PS Plus back in 2010 as an optional service for Playstation users. As well as the free games we are talking about today, Playstation users also received exclusive items such as background themes, store discounts and other exclusive content. It was a great deal for people who owned a PS3, but was often overlooked as it wasn’t mandatory until the release of the PS4.

Xbox live only decided to counter Sony’s model of PS+ in July of 2013. This wasn’t really because they were behind the curve and felt they needed more sales, it was because with Xbox Live Gold costing $60 a year already, a lot of the things that PS+ members received, Xbox owners already had. And so Games with Gold was announced giving Xbox Gold members what they were missing out on, free games every month.

Now that we’ve talked about how they started, let’s talk about their value versus the games we get.

If you own all of the Playstation consoles supported by this program (PS4, PS3 and PS Vita), you will get six free games per month! That is a lot of content, but in my mind it is somewhat weighed down by the amount of systems you need to own to make it worth your while. You can get those six games, plus any additional content for roughly $50 a month.

While not as good as six free games, you do still get four on the Xbox, with the Xbox 360 games in particular being a massive selling point! In the first month of the Games with Gold service alone, Microsoft gave Xbox owners 2 absolute classics in Halo 3 and Assassins Creed 2 and continued to give out must play games for the 360 such as Crackdown, Mafia 2, Tomb Raider and Thief. I will poke at Microsoft’s Xbox One game giveaways however as there have been a lot of games that leave me feeling like it is a waste of money. All things considered, I feel like the classics they give away on the 360 make up for the sub-par games on the One (which do seem to be getting better) and the $60 price point is definitely worth it for the amount of things your going to get from the Xbox Live service as a whole.

So there it is, if you’re looking for as many games as possible and the best value for money that you can find, Playstation Plus is probably the best service for you with its 6 games per month bundle. However, if you want to fill up your games library for Xbox One’s backwards compatibility with some absolutely great games, Games with Gold is still a great addition. As I’ve said before, chances are you aren’t going to buy a console for these features alone. The free monthly games add to both online services and by no means define them. Whichever console you are looking to buy, I would gravitate towards the one that your friends have, or that have the exlcusives you loved from last gen. These free titles shouldn’t be enough to sell a console.

What do you guys think? Which company has a better online service? Who gives away the better games? Leave us a comment in the box below!