Key Takeaways
- Sony said PS Plus revenue has increased over the past year.
- PS Plus revenue grew 18% year-on-year despite negative sentiment about the service's big price hike in 2023.
- This growth comes from increased revenue per PS Plus subscriber due to price increases and increased conversion to the Extra and Premium tiers of the service.
According to Sony's latest earnings report: playstation plus We're making more money than ever before. PS Plus experienced a significant price increase last year, but the subscription service's margins haven't taken as much of a hit as some had expected.
In 2022, Sony introduced a major restructuring to PlayStation Plus, splitting the subscription service into three tiers: Essential, Extra, and Premium. PS Plus Essential offers rotating monthly games, cloud saves, online play, and more, and works essentially the same as the previous service. The more expensive PS Plus Extra tier includes a Netflix-like library of hundreds of PS4 and PS5 games, while the flagship Premium tier adds PS5 and PS3 cloud streaming and emulated classic games from the PS1, PS2, and PSP generations.
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PS Plus Premium adds 5 games on November 19th
PlayStation confirms five games coming to the premium tier of its PlayStation Plus subscription service in November 2024.
In August 2023, Sony announced a significant 35% price increase for all PS Plus tiers. Many subscribers blamed the price increase on the then very disappointing selection of PS Plus add-ons. saints row and Generation 0There are no new benefits to the service either. Despite these complaints, Sony's recent Q2 FY2025 earnings report stated: PS Plus revenue increases 18% year-on-year. The PS Plus price increase took effect from September 6, 2023, and the report includes data up to September 30, 2024.
PS Plus subscribers have largely complied with the 2023 price increases.
Sony cited increased ARPU (average revenue per user) as the main driver of the service's growth last year, primarily due to price increases in 2023 and increased subscriber migration to PS Plus' Extra and Premium tiers. This means that the PS Plus price increase has done little to reduce subscribers to the service or motivate Extra and Premium members to downgrade to the cheaper Essential tier. It's unclear how many PlayStation users are currently subscribed to the service, as Sony has stopped updating PS Plus subscriber numbers.
PS Plus provides a stable profit base with dollar-based sales increasing 18% compared to the previous year. This is primarily due to an increase in average revenue per user (ARPU) due to the transition to higher service tiers and the impact of pricing revisions.
It's yet to be seen whether these results will encourage Sony to consider a future price increase for PS Plus. However, given the nature of the subscription service, more PS Plus price increases may be implemented in the future, regardless of whether the last price increase helped the service's revenue. Thankfully, PS Plus has been slowly adding more value to subscribers, especially its premium tier, with new PS2 emulators and an increased focus on classic games. PS Plus Extra and Premium, coming in November 2024, also include powerful features including: GTA 5, dying light 2, Like a dragon: Lee ShinAnd more.
playstation 5
Sony's PlayStation 5 is part of the ninth generation of consoles and debuted with a launch lineup that included Demon's Souls and Astro's Playroom. The console comes with a Blu-ray disc, but a digital-only edition is also available for a cheaper price.
