PlayStation Plus Prices Will Keep Going Up As Players Keep Upgrading

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As part of a large-scale Sony business segment meeting, there was much discussion about the state of PlayStation and its plans for future earnings. One aspect brought up was the significant revenue of PlayStation Plus and confirmation that prices will keep going up in the future. And Sony thinks that’s just fine, given recent player spending trends.

“Subscribers are increasingly choosing our Premium and Extra tiers, which now represent approximately 38% of total subscribers,” said SIE president and CEO Hideaki Nishino.

In FY22 the percentage of PS Plus subscribers on Premium and Extra were 17% and 13%, respectively. By FY24, that had grown to 22% and 16%, totaling that 38% number. Sony notes that this is even after a global price increase, where in September of 2023, yearly prices went up by 35% in some regions. And still, growth.

The highest profile subscription service we’re always hearing about is Xbox Game Pass, Microsoft’s slew of archived and day-one games that has players shelling out $20 a month to access. But with Sony’s enormous fleet of PlayStation consoles in the wild, PS Plus is a huge revenue driver, and that’s despite not offering really anything close to the breadth of Game Pass.

PlayStation Plus

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The market has arranged itself where you have no choice but to subscribe to these services if you want to play console games, unlike say, PC, where you’re only paying for your actual internet. So the prices can go up indefinitely without real consequence, plus players are being herded into higher tiers over time. Sony is pleased with where things are going and how much they can continue to hike rates:

“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 maximize profitability.”

If you want to read “adjust our pricing strategy in a dynamic way to maximize profitability” in a way other than “prices will keep going up,” I have a microtransaction of a bridge to sell you.

Increasingly, console-makers are relying on revenue from online services to be the money printer over console sales with lower margins. That’s more true for Xbox than PlayStation, given close to rock-bottom Xbox hardware sales as of late, but PS Plus is a huge deal for Sony, too. And they know that consumers don’t really have a choice but to keep paying with their online games held hostage.

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