PlayStation Plus loses 2 million more months after restart

June Sony PlayStation Plus Relaunch It doesn’t seem to be going quite as planned. In the Japanese giant Latest Financial Report, shows that since Plus launched, it lost 1.9 million subscribers between July and September of this year. “There hasn’t been much momentum,” said Sony’s chief financial officer, Hiroki Totoki. Despite this, the company saw a 10% increase in revenue at the same time.

as such I noticed before VGCHowever, the report reveals that PlayStation Plus subscription numbers have actually fallen after the hugely popular reboot, which saw the numbers drop from 47.3 million to 45.4 million. Those numbers are obviously still pretty good, almost double those Microsoft could boast of in Game Pass, but certainly not what Sony had hoped given the greatly improved nature of the subscription service.

PlayStation Plus restart It was definitely not an easy proposition to analyze. Adding three overlapping levels, and with some confusion among potential subscribers about which level provided access to which era of games, it is understood that all the promotional hype made in June would have simply helped remind a lot of people of the money coming out of their accounts each month. Since they would then have to understand what version of the new service they wanted, it makes sense that those who haven’t used it for a long time would have canceled instead.

Even more surprising, the rebooted shows, with hundreds of classic PlayStation games available for the sub, didn’t attract a significant new audience. Sony’s determination not to include new first-party titles, but instead charge a challenging $70 for them, may put off many who see Game Pass going in the exact opposite direction.

These numbers follow a trend seen since the fall of 2021, when subscriber numbers started to go wrong. Last summer, Plus had 48 million customers, dropping to 47.4 million by winter. This trend appears to have continued despite the re-launch, with the total now down by 2.6 million since last year’s peak.

However, thanks to the more expensive levels now on offer, the amount of revenue that Sony is already bringing in is already a plus. It rose 10%, to 116 billion yen ($788 million), which is like VGC It indicates that they are currently earning more money per subscriber, even if the number goes down. Although this trend continues, it won’t work for much longer.

When asked about these numbers on an earnings call, Chief Financial Officer Hiroki Totoki (via VGCTranslation) He said he believes this is due to a group of people going overseas again after the worst of the pandemic, lower numbers of third-party games and PlayStation 4 sales. “In the second quarter, we renewed our services and there wasn’t much momentum overall,” he added, Before blaming some of the lack of “robust” ad spend.

Totoki went on to tell investors that “very good titles” should help turn things around, along with better promotions. “We believe we can recover,” he concluded.

The Latest reported numbers for Game Pass It had 25 million subscribers in January of this year, up from 18 million a year earlier. So, while Microsoft is still a long way from Sony, it’s often headed in the opposite direction.