Want to Play 153 (Mostly) Japanese Games for Free for 15 Days? Sony Says: “You’re Welcome”

Giuseppe Nelva June 22, 2013 10:30 AM EST

Many don’t mind too much having to pay for PlayStation Plus to play online on the PS4, because with 21 free games for the US (at the moment of this writing) it looks like a very sweet deal. If you think that’s good, wait until you see what Japanese subscribers get…

At the moment of this writing the Japanese PS Plus Plus offers an enormous total of 153 free games between modern and classic ones to its subscribers. Yes. You read it correctly One Hundred Fifty-Three. And it’s not just any games. Within the instant collection you’ll find cult classics like Arc the Lad, Shin Megami Tensei if…, Tokyo Majin Gakuen: Ken Kaze Tobari, Lunatic Dawn Odyssey and III, Spectral Force, Spectral Tower II, Langrisser I, II, IV and V, Thunder Force V, Shadow Tower, Brigandine, Gun Parade March, Assault Suits Valken 2 and a metric ton of other gems. You can see the full list here and here.

Of course most (not all) of them are in Japanese, but between that enormous collection there are plenty masterpieces that any self-respecting gamer should at least try once in his life. The best classics in the bunch also have plenty guides online to help you through the language barrier.

The best part of this all, is that you can play all those games for free for 15 days, thanks to a PS Plus free trial membership currently offered by Sony Japan. If you don’t know any Japanese the process may be slightly tricky, but we’re here to help.

First of all, you need to create a Japanese PSN (Sony Entertainment Network) account. If you don’t have one you really should anyway, as the Japanese PSN often gives access to a lot of interesting stuff, and the Japanese PlayStation Home is a lot more fun than the western ones. There are many good guides online to do so, Kotaku has a very good one so I won’t repeat it here.

Now that you have your shiny new Japanese PSN account, you can move on to grabbing the PS Plus promotion. First of all go here, then follow the instructions in the pictures below.

Congratulations! Now you’re a member of the Japanese PS Plus for fifteen days. Of course you can renew it if you want after the two weeks expire, in order to keep accessing the games and get new ones. Remember that, as long as you are a member, you can redownload every single game you ever downloaded, even if you deleted it from your hard disk.

At last, it’s time to find the games you want and download them.

That’s it. Welcome to a veritable treasure chest that includes a large amount of gems from the history of the Japanese video game industry. As long as the games are on your hard disk (and your membership is active) you can play them even when you’re logged on your North American or European accounts.