Summary
- Walmart still sells PlayStation Now gift cards even though the service has been discontinued.
- PlayStation Now merged with PlayStation Plus, offering tiered services.
- Redeeming a PlayStation Now voucher now provides access to PlayStation Plus Premium, not 1:1 conversion.
A gamer has discovered that Walmart is still selling PlayStation Now gift cards even though the paid subscription service was discontinued years ago. PlayStation Now allowed users to play a large catalog of games across multiple generations of Sony consoles through the cloud.
In the middle of 2022, Sony Interactive Entertainment streamlined its subscription offerings by merging PlayStation Now with PlayStation Plus. The latter was restructured into a tiered service, with PlayStation Plus’ core benefits of providing access to online multiplayer, delivering a rotating list of free PlayStation games every month, and giving exclusive discounts being retained by the basic Essential plan. Those who wanted to continue enjoying the cloud gaming features that PlayStation Now previously offered, however, had to go for the pricier PlayStation Plus Premium, which also included all the trappings of the Essential and mid-tier Extra plans. More than two years after PlayStation Now was discontinued, pre-paid vouchers for the dead service can seemingly still be found in the wild.
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Reddit user Turnabout-Eman revealed in a recent post that at least one Walmart branch in the world has continued to sell PlayStation Now gift cards. According to the official PlayStation website, redeeming a PlayStation Now voucher these days will provide access to PlayStation Plus Premium, with the length of the subscription being determined by the monetary value of the voucher. As the price of the newer plan ($17.99 per month) is currently higher than what Sony used to charge for its discontinued service ($9.99 per month), vouchers will not net a 1:1 conversion. For example, a one-month PlayStation Now voucher is estimated to only provide around three weeks’ worth of PlayStation Plus Premium, according to the PlayStation website.
Walmart Still Sells PlayStation Now Gift Cards in 2024
Three games were added to the PlayStation Plus library in December, namely the RTS Aliens: Dark Descent by Tindalos Interactive, Hazelight Studios’ critically acclaimed story-driven co-op game It Takes Two, and the MMORPG Temtem by Crema. Several titles are scheduled to leave the service at the start of 2025, including Dragon Ball FighterZ, Life is Strange, and Resident Evil 2.
Sony revealed in a previous financial report that PlayStation Plus earnings grew by 18% between the respective second quarters of fiscal years 2023 and 2024 due to increased average spending from users that was, in turn, partly fueled by consumers moving to the service’s higher tiers. The PlayStation Now successor’s Extra plan provides access to a larger catalog of free PS4 and PS5 games. PlayStation Plus Premium further adds PS1, PS2, PS3, and PSP Games to the library of available titles.
