Please advise me - ps5!

[autumngirl714]

Hi all, you will have to excuse me because my knowledge of the gaming world is bare minimum. I am looking to buy my son a PS5 for his birthday. We don't have any consoles at home, but he does play on an Xbox at my parents house. On the Xbox, I pay monthly for him to be able to play games Online. I don't quite know how the PlayStation works. If I buy him a PS5, is there a membership similar to the Xbox One, where I can pay monthly for him to have access to games online?
I'm not necessarily meaning online to play with others, what I mean is the membership allows him to digitally download games.

I'm sure you will know what I mean. Ha ha
Any advice would be much appreciated.

For context, I have seen a PS5 digital version so I am assuming all games will need to be downloaded from the PlayStation store. I am wondering if there's a membership that I can pay monthly that will allow him to be able to do this?

Playstation plus?

PlayStation®Plus | Hundreds of games to download and play, PlayStation classics, game trials and more

Can be worth looking around for a deal on the membership as it can be sold by people like currys (in a voucher form) who sometimes do discounts. Note if you want to buy this try to look today for a deal! Also make sure you look at all three plan types and pick the one that's got everything you want on it, I'm not sure if the essential plan is too basic for you.

I wouldn't get the digital version. I have the one w a disc drive.
can watch DVDs on it
also means can buy second hand games at CEX
can still download games onto it
playstation plus is the online membership, I think it gives access to online games each month but I honestly cant remember
I love my PS5, upgraded from a ps4 when they came out and very happy with it. we have an external hard drive as well to allow even more storage of games.

Thanks both!
Unfortunately the one with discs is liek an extra £100 and I really can't afford that, although I agree it does some better!
Ive looked at the plus membership but can't work out if you can pay monthly?

PS Plus Extra works just like xbox's gamepass where you can download and play games for free from a large catalogue.

You used to be able to pay monthly, I don't know if that's still an option but I highly recommend getting the 1 year subs anyway as it works out a lot cheaper per month anyway.

PlayStation Plus is split into three membership tiers, essentials, extra, and premium. Extra is the one that lets you download and play lots of free games. Premium costs more but you only get really old classic games as an extra perk for that one so it's not worth it to a younger kid with no nostalgia for the old games (I love them!). Around 12 new games a month are added to extra with a big mix of different types and there is always at least 2-3 I want to play.

Getting one with a disk drive is highly recommended as games that are £50-70 on the online store can be bought on a disk for as little as £10. If you really can't afford it you can buy the disk drive separate at a later date and fit one on easily. It'll pay for itself in savings quite quickly.