PlayStation Plus loses millions of subscribers following rework

Sony’s latest financial report shows lower subscriber numbers for its recently-revamped PlayStation Plus service.

PlayStation Plus subscriber numbers have dropped by almost two million users after a major rework to the service added multiple new tiers.

According to Sony’s FY2022 Q2 financial report, the number of PlayStation Plus subscribers has fallen by almost two million users, from 47.3 million users last quarter to 45.4 million now. PlayStation Network’s monthly active users have also fallen, falling to 102 million from 103 million and 104 million in the previous two quarters.

According to VGC, who transcribed the earnings call following the release of the financial report, Sony’s chief financial officer Hiroki Totoki laid the blame on “more people … going outdoors”. An additional statement provided to VGC by Sony said that the drop in subscribers was also caused by “a greater decline in user engagement among PlayStation 4 users than expected”. PlayStation 5 engagement is apparently up, though, and overall revenue from subscriptions is higher than in the previous quarter, suggesting that despite the drop in subscribers, the newly-added tiers are doing quite well for the company.

PlayStation Plus relaunched in June 2022 with three new tiers - Essential, Extra, and Premium, the latter called Deluxe in Australia and missing some features. Picture: Sony Interactive Entertainment

Sony reworked its entire PlayStation Plus subscription service earlier this year, dividing it up into three distinct tiers with increasing benefits depending on how much users were willing to fork out. The basic tier, titled PlayStation Plus Essential, is more or less exactly what PS Plus was before the rework, while the PlayStation Plus Extra tier in the middle offers additional access to a library of existing games.

The highest tier, which will set players back $21.95 a month in Australia, is different depending on the country. The US, Japan, and most of Europe gets PS Plus Premium, which offers access to a growing library of classic games, both on the console and via cloud streaming, offering some (but not all) of the titles offered on the now-deprecated PS Now streaming service. Australia is not quite as lucky, instead getting a cut-back version of Premium called PS Plus Deluxe, which has the on-console classics and no cloud streaming at all.

The classic games collection has drawn controversy since its announcement and rollout, with players criticising the use of inferior PAL versions of PS1 games even in NTSC regions. Sony started adding NTSC versions of the games months later, though the library still has some titles that are stuck with PAL-only releases.

Written by Oliver Brandt on behalf of GLHF.