Xbox Game Pass subscribers way ahead of PS Plus tiers, says Sony in latest attempt to make itself look small

Do you think Sony is new? PlayStation Plus is the setup decent? Do you think that dividing the levels into Essential, Extra and Premium was a wise move by Sony’s strategists? Well, your thoughts aside, it seems the public’s reaction to the new subscription service hasn’t had the impact Sony had hoped for.

As part of a new development in the messy investigation into whether Microsoft should be allowed to acquire Activsion Blizzard, the UK Competition and Markets Authority has released Sony’s response to the authority’s Statement of Issues, revealing some important information. on the subscription arms. race in which the two holders of the platform participate.

“Game Pass significantly leads PlayStation Plus,” Sony writes in its response to the CMA. “Microsoft already has a substantial lead in multi-game subscription services. Game Pass has 29 million Xbox Game Pass console and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers, and is expected to grow substantially in the future. Microsoft’s subscription levels multiple PlayStation Plus games considerable lag [behind the numbers for Xbox Game Pass.]”

It’s worth noting that the last official numbers we heard from Microsoft about Game Pass suggested that the service had 25 million subscribers, and that was in January of this year. That means the service has added 4 million more members in less than 12 months. Since it’s “expected to grow substantially in the future,” you can also see why Sony is eyeing it with guarded eyes.

Earlier this year, we heard that PSN surpassed 100 million users, which means there are a huge number of people connected to PlayStation’s online infrastructure who aren’t necessarily PS Plus subscribers.

Data shown in Sony’s November 2022 earnings presentation revealed that the number of people subscribed to Sony’s PlayStation Plus dropped from 47.3 million to 45.4 million this quarter. So, that’s still more than the number of players who are subscribed to Xbox Game Pass, but Sony’s top-tier subscriber numbers, then, must be much lower than I would have previously expected from those numbers.

So what is Sony’s goal then? It will likely convert as many people already included in the PlayStation ecosystem into PS Plus subscribers, at the highest level possible. Whether we’ll see the company add more content, more discounts, or something else entirely to tease that remains to be seen.

I for one am still waiting for more PS1 games to be added to the service as promised before upgrading my membership from Extra to Premium.