Part of Sony’s online subscription service, PlayStation Plus, is going to be available to PlayStation 4 owners for free for a limited period of time. PS Plus gives members free downloadable games each month and unlocks access to the multiplayer gaming service, but only one of these benefits is being provided for the trial period.
The PlayStation Blog announced that a “free multiplayer weekend” is being rolled out in the same post that revealed the free games for the month of August. And there were certainly some pretty varied reactions to the titles being offered.
As for the two-day access, though, it goes live starting Saturday, August 8th at 12:01 am and runs through till Sunday, August 9th at 11:59 pm. So, while non-subscribers won’t be able to download the free games, they will be able to play any multiplayer modes from the titles in their existing library. Not all games require PS Plus to be played online, of course, as some of the biggest franchises like Fortnite, The Elder Scrolls Online and Warframe work just fine without it. But most do, so it’s a great time to dig out some older games and clock in a few rounds with friends over the weekend.
There’s some speculation that this move might be signalling a change in the PS Plus subscription model, which is being fuelled by rumors that Xbox Gold might be offered for free next-gen. But this all seems highly unlikely, considering that Sony makes quite a decent profit off of software sales and PlayStation Plus subscriptions alone.
It’s much more probable that this is just a marketing strategy, to get new players hooked into the ecosystem and old players back on board before the PlayStation 5 releases. Although, that being said, Sony is promising that there’s still some juice left in their current-gen console and they aren’t done with it just yet.
