Sony has defended the price increase applied to its PS Plus subscription service.

As of September 6, the Essential subscription will rise to £59.99 from £49.99, Extra will cost £99.99, and Premium £119.99 per year.

Sony Interactive Entertainment’s marketing, sales, and business operations head Eric Lempel has insisted it has never upped the cost of its online play service for "85 per cent of the world" and insisted it's worth it.

He told Barron’s: “We want to make PlayStation Plus great. With our reboot last year and introducing the tier system, a lot of consumers have recognised that there’s a lot of value in PlayStation 5.

“I’m happy to say, unlike a lot of other subscription services out there, we haven’t touched the PlayStation Plus pricing for 85 per cent of the world in many years. So, this was the first time we did something there.”

He went on: “With us, we feel we’re offering a great curated catalogue of games, as well as other features and services with PlayStation Plus.

“Also, we give you the options with the three tiers to engage as much or as little as you want, depending on what you’d like to do.”

Announcing the hike, Sony said: “This price adjustment will enable us to continue bringing high-quality games and value-added benefits to your PlayStation Plus subscription service."

By contrast, Microsoft's Xbox Game Pass costs £7.99 a month for the PC version of £12.99 for the Ultimate edition for games on PC, console and cloud.