Here Are the Best Game Subscription Services

Editors' Note: Xbox Game Pass Ultimate offers a slew of benefits, including a massive game library, diverse device support and both PC and console games. Nifty features like the ability to play on smart TVs, phones, tablets and PCs -- not just consoles -- make this a convenient gaming subscription service for a wide range of people. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate costs less than the price of a new game each month, yet gives access to hundreds of titles, which is why it earned a CNET Editors' Choice Award. The original list follows.

Gaming streaming services are available and here to stay. Just like movies and television, game streaming is a thing now. Every gaming platform has at least one, with Xbox, Nintendo and PlayStation building their gaming subscription services around multiplayer and a library of playable titles. That's right, even if you aren't interested in a digital gaming library, it might be more cost-effective to subscribe to one just to access things like multiplayer -- and you might even find a new favorite game along the way.

With cloud gaming and the PC version of Xbox Game Pass, subscriptions are a big part of PC gaming, but not yet the default. It helps that PC gamers can buy games a la carte from a variety of shops (Steam, GOG and so on), which means individual games are often discounted. 

And if content subscriptions are the future of gaming, then cloud gaming subscriptions are the future of that future, as they require almost no specialized hardware, and generally work anywhere, from an iPad to a cheap Chromebook. For this roundup, we're including both download and cloud-based subscription services. 

That said, the road to cloud gaming isn't always a smooth one. Google shut down its Stadia service  in January. And the very first cloud-gaming service, On Live, started in 2010 and shut down in 2015. 

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate remains the gold standard, offering a catalog of games across console, PC and cloud (which works on practically any device). But Sony has  revamped its PlayStation Plus service  to be much closer to what Microsoft offers. 

PlayStation Plus

This service went through a dramatic change in 2022. The new PS Plus  incorporates a large game catalog and also Sony's PS Now cloud gaming service. Subscribers have access to three tiers: Essential, Extra and Premium (called Deluxe in some countries). 

Essential is the same as the previous version of PS Plus, allowing access to online multiplayer games, along with PSN in-store discounts, cloud game saves and two new free-to-you games each month (similar to Xbox Live Gold).

Extra has about 400 PS4 and PS5 games available to play via download for $15 monthly, while Premium costs $18 a month and adds PlayStation 1, PS2, PS3 and PSP games, a handful of time-limited game demos and cloud streaming for select games. 

Essential is the least expensive ($10 a month), but Extra ($15 a month) is the tier everyone should have. Premium ($18 a month) feels like a stretch, unless you're really into retro games. --  Oscar Gonzalez 

See our top picks for the best PlayStation Plus games . 

Read our review of PlayStation Plus .

See at Sony

Also tested

EA Play

For $5 to $15 a month, you get access to a catalog of EA games , but EA Play is also included in Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. 

Ubisoft Plus

For $15 a month, you get access to Ubisoft games as a stand-alone PC subscription, or as a paid add-on to Stadia or Luna, and eventually Xbox . 

Google Play Pass

Like Apple Arcade, the Google version for Android phones includes lots of games, but also other apps . It works on Android devices only. 

Amazon Luna/Prime Gaming

Luna is Amazon's cloud-based service, like Stadia, that offers different catalogs for between $5 and $18 a month . Prime members can stream some games at no additional cost, and also get access to "a rotating selection" of full downloadable games. Amazon also owns Twitch, so there's deep built-in integration for streamers. 

Stadia

Google's cloud-based service is no more, but you can still go back and  read our launch review of Google Stadia .