PlayStation 5: PS Plus loses two million users since redesign

Sony’s Playstation Plus service lost nearly two million users in the first full quarter since its revamp.

In June this year, SONY launched the new concept for its PlayStation Plus service. With Essential, Extra and Premium, the subscription now has three different levels, each costing between EUR 8.99 and EUR 16.99 per month.

According to SONY’s financial results for the second quarter of fiscal 2022, the number of subscribers fell by 2 million since the transformation. Overall, the number of users fell for the third quarter in a row and is currently 45.4 million users.

Monthly active users were also down, falling to 102 million compared to the previous quarter (103 million) and the same period last year (104 million).

Meanwhile, SONY’s network service revenue, which includes revenue from PS Plus and advertising, grew 10 percent to 116 billion yen. The best quarterly result to date.

CFO Hiroki Totoki attributes the decline in subscribers to declining sales of Playstation 4 and third-party games. In addition, people would spend more time outdoors again.

For the next quarter, Totoki expects subscriber numbers to recover, also thanks to big releases like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II and God of War Ragnarok.

In another statement, SONY cites an unexpectedly sharp drop in user engagement among PlayStation 4 users as the reason for the drop in subscriptions:

“The number of PlayStation Plus subscriber accounts is down 4% to 45.4 million accounts at the end of September compared to the end of June. We see that this decline is due to a larger-than-expected drop in engagement from PlayStation 4 users.”

“On the other hand, the share of PS Plus subscribers among PlayStation 5 users is still significantly higher than that of PS4. We’ll do even more to accelerate PS5 hardware adoption to restore user engagement going forward.”

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