New playstation plus it doesn’t take off and quickly became a headache for Sony. A subscription service announced in March following the merger between PlayStation Now and the existing PS Plus. does not give the desired resultsAnd the statistics confirm this.
During the presentation of financial results for the second fiscal quarter of 2022, Sony revealed that PlayStation Plus now has 45.4 million subscribers. Namely, almost two million less than the previous quarterwhere it reported 47.3 million. That 4% drop is no small feat, given that the revamped service debuted in late June and failed to attract customers—both new and existing—between July and September.
Also, the number of active users of the PlayStation Network per month, which amounted to 102 million people, decreased by 2%. However, the new PlayStation Plus led to an increase in PSN’s revenue, which grew by 10% to reach 116,000 million yen. This is most likely due to the fact that subscription levels are now more expensive and allow generate more money per subscriber than the previous model.
Sony expects the performance of its subscription service to grow significantly compared to the third fiscal quarter of 2022, from October to December. The Japanese firm is betting that a recent entry Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 2 and fast arrival Golf Wars Ragnarokscheduled for November 9 will help attract more customers.
Why didn’t PlayStation Plus have a good debut?
According to Sony, there are several reasons for the slow release of the PlayStation Plus. All in all, Hiroki Totokithe financial director of the Japanese giant, explained this by falling sales of PS4 and third-party games.
However, the company later explained that there has been a larger-than-expected drop in PlayStation 4 user activity.. But they will make a big effort to reverse it due to PS5’s greater availability. The latter is no small matter, given that getting Sony’s latest console since its launch in late 2020 has been a nightmare.
The return to normality in most of the world after the pandemic has affected the small popularity of PlayStation Plus, according to Totoka. “Now more people are going out and we still need to get out of the negative cycles,” he said.
The new PlayStation Plus is considered an alternative to Microsoft’s Sony Xbox Game Pass. However, as we explained earlier, these services have more differences than similarities. The offer of the Japanese company is divided into three levels: Basic, Extra and Premium. They offer access to monthly free games, online games, exclusive PlayStation Store discounts and cloud storage. However, only the most expensive plan allows you to enjoy the full catalog of PSP, PS1, PS2 and PS3.
In addition, the decision to segment its launch by region and the lack of access to all options in Latin America, where there is no Premium plan but a Deluxe version is offered. the players are also not in favor. And the same can be said for both its pricing and its refusal to include new AAA games from day one.
Source: Hiper Textual
