PlayStation Plus Will Become a Worse Service and Will Soon Remove a Feature Still Used by Thousands of Players

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• PlayStation Plus Premium will discontinue its PC app in December.
• Sony says it wants to focus on delivering high-quality experiences that are more valuable to most PS Plus subscribers.
• PlayStation is gradually moving away from the PC market.

Subscription services have changed the way we enjoy our favorite video games, and they’re now more important than ever as a key part of the industry’s business strategies. PlayStation Plus has undergone several changes in recent years to compete with Xbox Game Pass and similar services, but Sony recently confirmed that it will lose one of its most interesting features.

Sony’s program originally launched as an additional service during the PS3 era, with its main benefit being a collection of free games every month. That perk is still available today, but the service has evolved and is now divided into three tiers, each offering its own benefits and exclusive content.

PlayStation Plus Will Soon Lose One of Its Key Features

Unfortunately, PS Plus Premium subscribers, who pay for the service’s most expensive tier, will lose access to a special feature. While this represents a significant loss for those who relied on the tool, Sony claims the change will affect only a very small number of users.

This week, Sony confirmed the list of games that will be available at no additional cost through the higher tiers of its subscription service throughout November. The most notable additions include Death Stranding 2 from Hideo Kojima, Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii from RGG Studio, and Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake from Square Enix.

The prospect of playing these titles at no additional cost through PlayStation Plus is certainly exciting, but the announcement also included some bad news that many players may have overlooked.

In the same post, Sony quietly confirmed that the service will become worse by the middle of next month because it is losing one of its key features. Specifically, the company announced that it will discontinue the PS Plus PC app on December 10, 2026.

Some players may not even know this, but PS Plus Premium subscribers can use a dedicated application to stream a selection of PS3 and PS4 games on PC. The feature never supported PlayStation 5 games, which inevitably limited its reach in recent years.

Sony explained that it decided to discontinue the app because of a lack of interest from users. According to the Japanese company, only approximately 0.4% of PlayStation Plus subscribers used this feature. While that may seem like a small percentage, it’s worth putting the figure into perspective.

The company stopped sharing the number of active members in its subscription service in 2023. At the time, however, it reported having more than 47.4 million subscribers. If the current figure remains in a similar range, an estimated 180,000 players with PS Plus Premium were still using the PC app.

PlayStation Plus Will Still Offer Cloud Gaming

Sony explained that its goal is to provide high-quality experiences for players. That’s why it regularly reviews its content and features to ensure they focus on what subscribers value the most. As a result, it decided to remove the PS Plus PC app starting in December.

Consequently, the subscription service’s cloud gaming app for PC will no longer be available. The company says discontinuing the feature will allow it to focus its efforts on delivering the “high-quality experiences that more users want to use.”

Naturally, the announcement caused concern among some fans. Fortunately, Sony confirmed that this change will not affect subscribers or the PlayStation Plus benefits available on PS4 and PS5. Cloud gaming through streaming will therefore remain an option on Sony’s consoles and PlayStation Portal.

Although the company emphasized that the feature’s lack of popularity was the main reason behind its decision, it’s unclear why Sony chose to discontinue it now. It’s difficult to ignore that the announcement comes at a time when the company is beginning to scale back its support for PC.

Sony confirmed that it will stop releasing single-player games from its biggest franchises on Steam and the Epic Games Store. As a result, fans should only expect PC ports of titles with a strong multiplayer focus, such as the recent Marathon and Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls.

But tell us: did you know there was a PlayStation Plus app for PC? Let us know in the comments.