Image via PlayStation
PlayStation Plus has lost nearly 2 million subscribers since it launched earlier this year.
Sony’s latest financial reports reveal that 1.9 million subscribers have left the service between July and September of this year. Sony’s CFO Hiroko Totoki said there “hasn’t been great momentum.” Still, Sony did see a 10% revenue increase.
The financial reports reveal that PlayStation Plus subscription numbers fell following the re-launch from 47.3 million to 45.4 million. Although 45.4 million is still a major number–and more than Microsoft’s Game Pass subscriber count–it’s still not what Sony had been aiming for with its relaunch.
The PlayStation Plus relaunch did run into some issues. There was a lot of confusion among subscribers and potential subscribers over what tier had precisely what benefits.
Although the new subscription allows for people to access classic PlayStation games, it doesn’t look like many are very enthusiastic about this.
The subscriber counts falling has been ongoing since fall 2021. In the summer of 2021, PlayStation Plus boasted 48 million subscribers. Then, by the winter, that figure fell to 47.4 million. Now, the total since fall 2021 has been a loss of 2.6 million subscribers.
Still, the tiers are more expensive, and that has brought Sony’s revenue up by 10% or 788 million. Despite falling counts, more revenue per subscriber is being reaped. Still, if subscriber counts continue to go down, it could prove to be a problem.
CFO Hiroko Totoki was asked about the figures on an earnings call (VGC provided translation). Totoki said he believed that the falling subscriber count was due to several factors, including people going back to normal life post-pandemic and the declining number of third-party games and PS4 sales.
“In the second quarter we renewed our services and there hasn’t been great momentum as a whole,” Totoki explained. He also added that there was a lack of “aggressive” ad spending, which may have impacted how many people knew about the service.
Totoki does believe that Sony will be “able to recover.”
On the other competitive end of the spectrum, Microsoft’s Game pass subscribers went up from 18 million last year to 25 million this year. Although at least half of Sony’s PlayStation Plus subscriber number, the figures are going up. Still, Game Pass did not meet Microsoft’s expectations for two years in a row now.
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