PS+ works roughly like that. If you are a member of the program you get the 7 or so items that are free, usually a split between PS3 and PS4 games, and get to keep them so long as you are in the program, if you leave the program you can't redownload them or play them until you rejoin the program, but you do get them all back once rejoining. If you only have a PS3 though, you can go to the Sony site and login and claim the PS4 titles as well so that once you have a PS4 you can download them.
So basically it sounds like the two programs are the same in the long run, it's just the PS+ program puts all the new monthly games out at one time not throughout the month.
Edit: I forgot, it also includes some PSVita games.
Interesting about the loss of playability when you leave the program. I wonder if that is the case for Xbox (never had Gold drop to test). Yeah the staggered releases are a little annoying, but it gives you time to play the games... or if you are like me... stockpile to play months later.
Based on a couple of gaming sites, Xbox allows you to keep Xbox 360 games but you must maintain a subscription to keep the Xbox One games. Which really isn't a bad deal... and I too am a stockpiler, I don't' always have the time to play so it's nice to have them all there when I'm ready so I can play a little of each or a lot of one.
I've got a sickeningly large back-list of games to play. I see a cheap game in a bargain bin and I buy it, just for the achievements. Which reminds me, I have to start figuring out what I'm going to do for this years Extra-Life
Last year I had a Twitch stream going where my HUD reflected the latest achievements I got (5 minute delay on the achievement update). I'm looking at rebuilding my streaming HUB to allow me to click a button after I get an achievement to manually update the HUD. That and a few other things like frustration gauges, playthrough history logs to show how long I played a certain game during the event and so on.
PS+ works roughly like that. If you are a member of the program you get the 7 or so items that are free, usually a split between PS3 and PS4 games, and get to keep them so long as you are in the program, if you leave the program you can't redownload them or play them until you rejoin the program, but you do get them all back once rejoining. If you only have a PS3 though, you can go to the Sony site and login and claim the PS4 titles as well so that once you have a PS4 you can download them.
So basically it sounds like the two programs are the same in the long run, it's just the PS+ program puts all the new monthly games out at one time not throughout the month.
Edit: I forgot, it also includes some PSVita games.
Interesting about the loss of playability when you leave the program. I wonder if that is the case for Xbox (never had Gold drop to test). Yeah the staggered releases are a little annoying, but it gives you time to play the games... or if you are like me... stockpile to play months later.
Based on a couple of gaming sites, Xbox allows you to keep Xbox 360 games but you must maintain a subscription to keep the Xbox One games. Which really isn't a bad deal... and I too am a stockpiler, I don't' always have the time to play so it's nice to have them all there when I'm ready so I can play a little of each or a lot of one.
I've got a sickeningly large back-list of games to play. I see a cheap game in a bargain bin and I buy it, just for the achievements. Which reminds me, I have to start figuring out what I'm going to do for this years Extra-Life
I'd actually never heard of Extra-Life before, now I have something to read over and maybe do later this year.
Last year I had a Twitch stream going where my HUD reflected the latest achievements I got (5 minute delay on the achievement update). I'm looking at rebuilding my streaming HUB to allow me to click a button after I get an achievement to manually update the HUD. That and a few other things like frustration gauges, playthrough history logs to show how long I played a certain game during the event and so on.