Life is about to get more expensive for PlayStation gamers as Sony announced a whopping 25% price rise for its PlayStation Plus service.

An annual subscription to the service, which is required in order to play multiplayer games on PlayStation 4 and also allows access to an 'instant game collection' of downloadable titles, will go up from £39.99 to £49.99 at the end of August.

The changes come into effect at 00.01 tomorrow morning (August 31).

But the good news is that if you act fast you can still not only beat the price hike for the next 12 months but for years in advance. Here's how.

You don't have to wait

Even if your subscription runs out after August 31, you don't have to pay the new price to renew it. That's because subscriptions can be added to a 'stack', meaning in effect that the extra period of time is added to your current subscription.

In an email to current subscribers, Sony confirms: "Up until 31 August 2017, you may purchase a PlayStation Plus subscription at the current price, which will then be added (or 'stacked on') to your current membership period."

But there's no reason you couldn't use the same technique when subscribing for the first time.

There is no limit to the size of this stack, so in theory you could pay for years' worth of subscriptions upfront right now at current prices. This alone will save you 25% on your next subscription. But there's more.

Shop around

Paying for your subscription direct through Sony's PlayStation Network service is easy but costly: you'll pay the full RRP, currently £39.99 for an annual subscription, £14.99 for a quarterly subscription, or £5.99 per month (from August 31, these go up to £49.99, £19.99 and £6.99 respectively.)

But you can also buy subscription codes from third party sellers much cheaper, which can be redeemed online to add to your subscription 'stack'.

At the time of writing, cdkeys.com have 12-month codes available for £35.79 - a saving of £4.20 on the official RRP or £14.20 per year on the forthcoming prices.

Their codes are sent direct by email and can be redeemed immediately.

If you're uncomfortable with this method, codes can also be purchased on prepaid cards in game shops and supermarkets, though these tend to be priced at or even above Sony's RRP - and shops may choose to put their prices up in anticipation of the official increase, so you'll need to be quick.