The GTA Online $1 Million PS+ benefits will be seeing a bit of a change come April, as the perks will no longer be applied automatically to accounts, but instead will now require a store redemption.
In an email we received from the PlayStation Network subscription letter, it details a new change coming to the GTA Online $1 Million PS+ Benefits. For those unaware, as part of the GTA 5 next-gen promotion, Rockstar Games had teamed up with PlayStation to offer an exclusive monthly deposit of $1 million GTA Online dollars for PS Plus subscribers. This money was automatically deposited into users accounts, once a time each month. However, it has now been confirmed that players will now be required to redeem the perk rather than automatically be given it.
The email reads:
Changes to your GTA$ Benefit
The way you receive your monthly GTA$1,000,000 Playstation®Plus benefit will soon change.
From April 1, 2021 forward you will need to claim your monthly GTA$1,000,000 benefit from the Playstation™Store. At the start of each month a new GTA$1,000,000 product will be available on the PS Store, like other similar PS Plus pack benefits. You must be a Playstation®Plus subscriber to claim this product each month and the GTA$ will be deposited into your in-game account upon store redemption.
The month of March 2021 will be the last month in which your monthly GTA$ benefit will be automatically deposited into your in-game account within 72 hours of your first play session. As of April 1, 2021, these automatic GTA$ in-game deposits will be discontinued.
The amount of the GTA$ benefit is not changing. The offer is still limited to GTA$1,000,000 per person per month and this offer will still end when Grand Theft Auto V launches on Playstation®5 in the second half of 2021. A specific release date of GTAV on PS5™ has not yet been announced.
Of course with this news there seems to be much confusion in the GTA Online community as to why Rockstar is making these changes. For those unaware, Sony has a system in place where users can designate which console is their primary/home console. Not only does this feature allow users to be able to play their digital games offline, but it also allows any account on the designated primary console to enjoy PS+ benefits such as online play. This meaning you could play in online matches without an account needing a PS+ subscription if one of the primary accounts already have it.
However, in the case of GTA Online and it’s PS+ perks, those benefits also applied to every account that logged into GTA Online for a given month. Unsurprisingly, some users ended up exploiting this system by giving accounts without a subscription, free $1 million GTA bucks. It seems that both PlayStation and Rockstar Games are set to correct this as the perk now requires redemption, which is tied to a user’s account rather than being system wide.