Sony's long-awaited PlayStation Plus expansion is now live, and it could provide some stiff competition to other monthly gaming services like Xbox Game Pass.

PS Plus has been around for years, offering access to online features in exchange for a small monthly fee. That all changes this month, as PS Plus has merged with PS Now, Sony’s other platform that offers access to a huge library of games for a small monthly fee. Starting June 13, both platforms will fall under the PS Plus umbrella. Customers will be able to choose from multiple tiers of service, one of which includes classic PS1, PS2 and PS3 games, making a PS Plus subscription more appealing than ever.

"The revised PlayStation Plus tiers are a marked improvement over the previous content subscription offering," Rhys Elliott, games market analyst at Newzoo, told Lifewire via Twitter. "PlayStation's new subscription offering will erase the negative branding associated with PlayStation Now, incentivize the core fanbase to upgrade to the higher tiers, and result in increased recurring revenue for Sony."

Customers in North America have access to three different tiers of PS Plus, each more expensive and offering more content than the last. The most interesting plan is PS Plus Premium. For $18/month, it offers access to the largest library of games, time-limited trials of select titles, and cloud streaming of classics. Sony seems to be aiming directly at Xbox Game Pass with this tier, but it’s unclear whether the company has successfully communicated the new PS Plus structure to the gaming community.