PlayStation Plus Premium: 2 -hour tests for all games sold more than 33 euros?

In addition to a catalog of more than 750 games from all generations of PlayStation, one of the arguments put forward by Sony Interactive Entertainment to motivate its PlayStation subscribers more to go to Premium for 120 euros per year (against 60 euros currently) holds in the Presence of "thered tests limited in time allowing you to test certain games before buying them", says the manufacturer. But what games and under what conditions? The Game Developer site brings elements of interesting responses from the studios that have received the SIE instructions.

Pending official communication of PlayStation, Game Developer's sources reveal that all the games sold at least 33 euros (34 dollars in the United States, 4,000 yen in Japan) on the PlayStation Store will have to be accompanied by a version of Test of a duration of at least two hours (which is also the maximum playing time to be reimbursed for any Steam game). These test versions will thus be accessible to the more premium PlayStation subscribers, but not necessarily from the day of the game.

The developers keep the freedom to offer their free trial no later than three months after the release of their game, once it has already made most of its sales. In addition, a free trial must remain available to PlayStation Plus Premium subscribers for at least 12 months, but the developer can then choose to delete it.

At first glance, the directive seems as appreciable for the consumer as restrictive for the modest teams, who often explain that the creation of playable demos takes time and money. It remains to be seen to what extent these test versions really represent a constraint for the studios, because in practice it is essentially to activate the full game for two hours.

Studios will always have the possibility of designing playable demos without time limit if they wish, the same for free weekend type operations. No test version will be requested regarding games whose launch price is less than 33 euros. In addition, this instruction is not retroactive and therefore does not apply to games already released, or to PlayStation VR games, present or future.