Sony has revealed that, despite its recent price hikes for PlayStation Plus subscriptions, the service has still seen growth. In its recent PlayStation business update, the company also confirmed that we will likely see prices for PlayStation Plus subscriptions change throughout all tiers.
During the presentation, Sony Interactive Entertainment president and CEO Hideaki Nishino revealed that even with the prices being higher, PlayStation Plus subscribers are opting for more expensive tiers like Premium and Extra. These tiers now represent a big percentage of the total number of PS Plus subscribers.
“Subscribers are increasingly choosing our Premium and Extra tiers, which now represent approximately 38% of total subscribers,” said Nishino, who went on to break down the subscriber figures further. He revealed that out of the 38 percent, 22 percent were subscribed to the Premium tier and 16 percent to were on the Extra tier as of FY 2024. This is in comparison to 17 percent and 13 percent respectively in FY 2022.
This growth, according to Nishino, has indicated to Sony that its user base sees value in the subscription service across its various aspects, from its line-up of free games to improvements made to the overall online infrastructure.
“PlayStation Plus is highly valued by our players and continues to drive engagement,” he said. “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.”
Nishino capped the subject of by stating that the company plans on bringing more content and improvements to the service as time goes on. This also means that Sony will continue to revise its pricing strategies for PS Plus, potentially making it even more expensive, depending on the value it offers to players.
“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,” he said.
The most recent price hikes for PS Plus were announced back in March for Australia, South Korea, Southeast Asia, as well as 15 Latin American countries, including Chile, Bolivia and Mexico, among others. At the time, the decision to raise the price was made, according to Sony, because of “global market conditions”.
“This price adjustment will allow us to continue offering high quality games and value-added benefits to your PlayStation Plus subscription,” wrote the company in its announcement at the time. These prices, will announced a couple of months ago, will only start coming into effect for subscribers from this month onwards.