The Best Perks of Xbox Live Gold and PlayStation Plus You May Not Know

Whether you have an Xbox One or a PlayStation 4, if you want to play online with friends, you'll need to cough up the money required for Xbox Live Gold or PlayStation Plus. You may even pick it up just for the free games every month. Still, there are some other perks to that membership you may not know about. Let's take a look at them.

Most of us know that an annual Xbox Live Gold ($60/yr) or PlayStation Plus ($50/yr) membership comes with things like free games and the ability to play multiplayer titles online with our friends (assuming those networks stay up, that is.) If you do spend the money on either, you probably want to get your money's worth. Let's take a look at some of the other, often overlooked perks of both memberships so you can squeeze every dollar out of that subscription before it renews.

Free Trials, Betas, and Discounts On Digital Game Downloads

You probably know about the free games you can get with your premium memberships, but both Xbox Live Gold and PlayStation Plus members get pretty hefty discounts on game downloads too. PlayStation Plus members get discounts up to 75% off some titles they can download and play right away, and Microsoft's Deals with Gold program offers equally steep cuts on retail prices for tons of new and recently released titles you can get right away. Right now, for example, Xbox Live Gold members can pick up Tomb Raider for 50% off, or snag a range of discounts on any Namco title in the store. Sony just put the wraps back on a year-end flash sale, but you can be sure more are on the way.

Similarly, both consoles give their premium members access to betas, free game trials, and more that free users don't necessarily get access to. For example, PlayStation Plus members can get—depending on the title—a one-hour free trial of a title so they can play it before they decide to buy it. If you're looking for something new and interesting to try out—even if it's something terrible—you can probably find something interesting just by looking at the betas and demos available. You never know, you might find an unexpected favorite.

Trainer-Led Workouts and Exercise Videos (Xbox One Only)

If you have an Xbox One and Xbox Live Gold, Xbox Fitness gives you plenty of workout videos, trainer-led exercise routines, and more to follow from your living room. Most of the videos focus on cardio and aerobic exercise, and all of them are led by so-called "famous" celebrity trainers. The concept of celebrity trainers may be eyeroll-worthy in its own right, but the workouts themselves are legitimate if they're the type of exercise you gravitate towards. If you have an Xbox One with Kinect, you'll get real-time feedback on your activity level, heart rate, and performance while you follow along with the trainer on-screen, who'll urge you to push harder and do more, or signal when it's time to take a break and relax or cool down.

Clearly you'll need Xbox Live Gold to take advantage of the service, and you get 30 workouts with your membership—which should be enough to keep you active and from getting bored for a while. Once you do get bored though, additional workout routines are available to purchase individually so you can keep things interesting.

Online Save Game Storage (PlayStation Only)

Not too many people realize it because we're all firmly entrenched in the habit of saving games to our consoles' local drives, but your PlayStation Plus membership also nets you up to 3GB of online storage for your save games, on all of your PlayStation consoles—the PS4, PS3, or PS Vita. The feature is most useful if you like picking up your games where you left off on another console—like a PS3 or PS4 at a friends' house, or on a PS Vita if the game you're playing supports it.

As useful as it can be for playing the same game in multiple places at the same time, it can also be useful if you plan on getting a new console, want to upgrade your console's hard drive, or just prefer an online backup of your most important save games in case something happens to your local copies.

Free Games for All Of Your Consoles, Including Last-Gen

We'll finish with the obvious one. If you have an Xbox One or a PS4 and sign up for Gold or Plus, every month you get free games for your shiny new console, and once you "buy" and download them, they're yours forever, on every console you own. What you may have forgotten is that you also get games for your older consoles too. That means if your Xbox 360 is sitting in your home theater even though the Xbox One is the new star of the show, or your old PS3 is in the bedroom as a streaming video and Blu-ray player while the PS4 dominates the living room, both of those older consoles can still get tons of free games. Similarly, if you have a PS Vita, you also get free games for your handheld.

Whether you actually want those games is another story, but they're available to you, and usually there's at least one or two titles worth downloading every month, drive space permitting. Microsoft calls the program "Games with Gold," while Sony calls it "Instant Game Collection." You can find both in each console's respective dashboard or digital download store.

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If you use your consoles as media devices, it's important to note that you don't need Gold anymore (and you never needed Plus) to stream Netflix, Hulu, or most other online video streaming services—you'll need subscriptions to those services, but you can use your console as a media streaming device without ponying up for an additional subscription now.

Of course, Xbox Live Gold and PlayStation Plus' biggest benefits are online multiplayer. If you want to play with friends online at all, you'll need those subscriptions. Of course, one Gold or Plus subscription is all it takes for any of your consoles or anyone using them to get online and play with others. If you play multiplayer titles, it's a necessity. Whether that—along with the perks above—make it worth the money is up to you of course, but if you do shell out for those premium subscriptions, take note of some of these lesser known perks so you get every dollar's worth out of your membership.

Title photo made using oberon_sk (Shutterstock). Additional photos by myxboxgr, bagogames, and Santos Gonzalez.

from Lifehacker http://lifehacker.com/the-best-perks-of-xbox-live-gold-and-playstation-plus-y-1676052998

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