Summer is heating up for gamers this year, as plenty of showcases and games are releasing this season. Not only that, Sony has launched its latest revamp of its proprietary subscription service, PlayStation Plus. These new tiers for PS Plus launched recently across PS4 and PS5 platforms for fans in the United States. These tiers come in four kinds, known as Essential, Extra, Deluxe, and Premium, which offer a bunch more incentives based on how much a fan is paying for it. These benefits include access to various first-party or third-party current gen PlayStation games, to a host of classic titles.
These classic PlayStation titles in particular can only be accessed with subscription to a certain tier, more specifically the highest one known as Premium. This will grant fans access to games such as Jumping Flash, the first Ape Escape game, and even a version of Resident Evil that is both famous and infamous for a variety of reasons, most of which stems from the re-composed soundtrack. The versions of the game that are included in this service are also superior to its initial launch in certain Asian territories.
For the uninitiated, when the PlayStation Plus revamp went live in regions like Indonesia, the PS1 classics that fans had access to had ran at 50 Hz, limiting the game’s frame rate to 25 FPS instead of 30. This was due to the service using the PAL versions of the game, which is the main TV system in that region. These were incompatible with most console games developed by America or Japan, where they used the NTSC system. Games that converted from NTSC to PAL formats ran slower, had muddier graphics, and contained the aforementioned limited frame rate.
With Sony’s revamped PS Plus service live for the States, it’s been confirmed that the NTSC versions of the games will be available for fans to play. This means that North American gamers will be able to play the classics as they were originally designed for the system, without any technical headaches such as choppy frame rates or slower run times.
While the service is live in the States now, Sony will be releasing these new PS Plus tiers to Europe later in the month. The current list of games available for the service in North America will be updated every month, with a new free game being added every first Tuesday. It hasn’t been stated if the European version of the PlayStation Plus service revamp will also be receiving the 60 Hz or 50 Hz versions of these classics, though it should be noted the region does have televisions that do support both formats.
Source: VGC
