Sony has lost 2 million subscribers this quarter, going from 47.3 million subscriptions to 45.4 million subscriptions. The company announced the numbers in its latest earnings call.
Despite the 2 million drop though, Sony has still had its best quarter ever from services revenue, which includes PlayStation Plus. “Network Service” revenue jumped to 116 billion yen from 106 billion yen – An increase of nearly 10%.
So, despite the loss in PlayStation Plus subscribers, the company is making more revenue per subscriber than it was before. Sony believes the subscriber count will increase by the next quarter thanks to the release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and God of War Ragnarok.
Sony changed its PlayStation Plus service earlier this year, offering players different tiers for different benefits.
- PlayStation Plus Essential ($10/mo or $60/year): If you already subscribe to PlayStation Plus, this tier is basically identical. It lets you play games online and store game saves in the cloud. You can also claim two free games and add them to your library every month, and you get to keep playing them as long as you stay subscribed. This tier will also continue to include the PlayStation Plus Collection of top-tier games for PS5 owners.
- PlayStation Plus Extra ($15/mo or $100/year): This tier comes with an extra 400 games from the PS4 and PS5 that you can download to your system directly. Just like Game Pass, this selection of games might change over time, and some might leave the service eventually.
- PlayStation Plus Premium ($18/mo or $120/year): This level adds game streaming, which was previously exclusive to PlayStation Now. It also adds another library of games, this time from every generation of PlayStation, starting with the original and going up to the PS3. Some games will only be available via streaming (including all PS3 games), while others may be downloadable.
As of this quarter, Sony has now sold 25 million PlayStation 5s, which is likely to ramp up considerably in the next couple of years. Insider Gaming previously reported that Sony is planning to ship 30 million PlayStation 5’s in FY23, which will include the new PlayStation 5 console.
The lack of console sales comes from the COVID-19 pandemic, which has caused significant supply chain issues for hardware components.
For more from Insider Gaming, check out today’s article on Hideo Kojima’s next game featuring Shioli Kutsuna.
