Even though PlayStation is losing PS Plus subs, Sony’s service still outnumbers Xbox Game Pass
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sony PlayStation Plus The relaunch has been an interesting experiment so far. Some people are very much in favor of the recently updated service, which features both classic PlayStation games and (sometimes) new titles. But there’s also a contingent of people who are upset about the upgrades, who think it could definitely offer better value for money. Especially at the more expensive levels.
New data shown this week in Sony’s latest earnings presentation reveals that the number of people subscribing to Sony’s PlayStation Plus has dropped from 47.3 million to 45.4 million this quarter. The fact that this is the third consecutive quarterly decline in PS Plus subscribers would be bad news in and of itself, but when you consider that it also comes on the back of the PS Plus re-release… well, it probably left Sony feeling a little angry.
But there is good news buried in this data, strangely enough. Sony just had its best quarter ever for subscription revenue. By a tweet From industry analyst and all-round smart guy Daniel Ahmad, Sony is getting an additional 21% revenue per subscriber in the PS+ segment. To put it plainly? Fewer people are spending more money on PS Plus. That basically translates to: people are paying for the most expensive tiers.
So even if we’re all upset that no PS1 games make it to the PS Plus Premium tier, or even if we’re a little irritated that the only day-and-date games are third-party trivia like Stray, the numbers are in Sony’s favor. : Many PS Plus subscribers have converted to the Extra or Premium levels.
And whichever way you look at it, the facts remain: PS Plus is more popular with consumers than Xbox Game Pass. Our most recent update on Game Pass is from January of this year, when we learned that the service has over 25 million subscribers. This is for a console ecosystem that contains around 63 million consoles. Xbox games generated a staggering total revenue of $16.28 billion for Microsoft during the calendar year of 2021, and Xbox Game Pass was responsible for 18% of this. So while the numbers are lower than Sony’s PS Plus subs, overall the profits made from these subscription services are not to be underestimated.
Last month we learned how much Xbox and PlayStation spend to get games on their service, thanks to a listing from the publisher behind Ark: Survival Evolved. The PlayStation Plus game for members to claim for five weeks between March 1 and April 4, and based on previous information, we know that Sony insured the game for $3.5 million in that time frame. Meanwhile, Microsoft paid slightly less: $2.5 million to feature the game on Game Pass for the first half of 2022, and then another $2.3 million to bring ARK 2 to the service when it launches in 2023.
So what is takeout? Sony and Microsoft pour huge sums of money into their respective subscription services, but to a good end. Clearly there is money to be had. And yes, Sony may have a whopping ~20 million more subscribers than Microsoft, the Xbox numbers are growing to match its PlayStation counterpart.
Whichever way you look at it, subscription services are here to stay.
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