Japanese tech conglomerate Sony says that as PlayStation Plus subscribers increasingly select premier plans, it will continue to raise prices. Sony has already considerably inflated subscription prices in some regions. The earliest of recent price hikes, which really took off around 2023, affected players outside the United States.
At its latest business segment meeting, according to VGC, Sony said the number of players opting for premier PlayStation Plus memberships has steadily risen over the last few fiscal years.
In 2022, 17% of subscribers opted for the Premium offering and 13% for the Extra tier. In just two years’ time, those figures grew to 22% and 16%, respectively, comprising around 38% of all Plus users.
“Subscribers are increasingly choosing our Premium and Extra tiers, which now represent approximately 38% of total subscribers,” said Sony Interactive Entertainment President and CEO Hideaki Nishino. He continued in a post-presentation Fireside Chat video.
We’re already seen a trend toward the option of higher tiers within our service, as evidenced by the subscriber mix we achieved in FY2024, where approximately 38% of players are now subscribed to PlayStation Plus Premium or Extra tiers.
“This is even after the global price increases we implemented in FY2023, and more recently, the local price increases in selected countries, to improve our pricing strategy across certain market clusters, and also to account for [foreign exchange] movements.
“These price increases were partly a result of increasing value we bring to the players, through the quality and diversity of content we continue to add, as well as investment in the features to improve the service further, such as player personalisation and enhanced content discovery.
“The PlayStation Plus service offers great value for our players, and we will continue to add more value and adjust our pricing strategy in a dynamic way to maximise profitability.”
For the uninitiated, PlayStation offers Plus memberships in three tiers. The brand’s most bare-bones option, the Essential plan, runs players $10 monthly. Essential customers can access online multiplayer and monthly games. The mid-level option, its Extra plan, costs players $14.99 monthly and offers those same features as well as Ubisoft+ Classics and an extended games library. The Premium plan includes all aforementioned perks as well as cloud streaming, access to a classics library, and game trials for $17.99 monthly.
As billion-dollar brands continue their befuddling pursuit of endless year-on-year growth, consumers will likely continue to pay — literally and figuratively. Many brands, not just those in tech, are moving toward subscription models. On the surface, these lower up-front costs feel more reasonable to buyers, but amount to little more than a remote rental service. Gamers don’t own games, they lease them. But as AAA games increasingly near triple-digit sticker prices, these subscriptions are among the only remaining affordable options for players to enjoy games from their favorite studios. Unlike Friday night Blockbuster rentals or Gamefly deliveries, players’ rentals come in the form of no-frills digital downloads.
Console sales are shrinking, and brands are positioning these monthly plans to compensate. Microsoft’s Xbox has similarly leaned even further into its Xbox Game Pass offering, a subscription-based plan that permits players access to online gaming capabilities and an extensive catalog of new and classic titles. In a kind of vicious, capitalistic cycle, fans will continue to pay for access to games the brands have opted to no longer sell in a traditional sense. As of late, digital media has overtaken physical copies, a move critics say challenges consumer access to — and, frankly, ownership of — playable purchases.
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A lifelong gamer raised on classic titles like Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, and Croc, Stephanie brings her expertise of gaming and pop culture to deliver unique, refreshing views on the world of video games, complete with references to absurd and obscure media.
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