Important takeaways
- Sony reveals that PS Plus revenue has increased over the past year.
- PS Plus revenue is up 18% year-on-year despite negative sentiment surrounding the service's big price hike in 2023.
- The growth comes from higher revenue per PS Plus subscriber thanks to the price increase and an increasing shift to the Extra and Premium tiers of the service.
That's what Sony's latest earnings report shows PlayStation Plus generating more money than ever. Although PS Plus underwent a hefty price hike last year, the subscription service's profit margins haven't taken the hit some might have expected.
Already in 2022, Sony introduced a major restructuring of PlayStation Plus by dividing the subscription service into three levels – Essential, Extra and Premium. PS Plus Essential offers a rotating set of monthly games, cloud saves, online play and more, and works in essentially the exact same way as the service previously did. The more expensive PS Plus Extra tier has a Netflix-like library of hundreds of PS4 and PS5 games, and the flagship Premium tier further adds PS5 and PS3 cloud streaming and emulated classics from the PS1, PS2 and PSP generations.
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PS Plus Premium adds 5 games on November 19th
PlayStation confirms the five games coming to the Premium tier of the PlayStation Plus subscription service in November 2024.
In August 2023, Sony announced a hefty 35% price increase for all PS Plus tiers. Many subscribers bemoaned the price hike due to a selection of critically underwhelming PS Plus add-ons at the time, such as Saints Row and Generation zeroand no new benefits for the service. Despite the complaints, Sony's latest Q2 earnings report for FY2025 revealed that PS Plus revenue was up 18% year over year. The PS Plus price increase took effect on September 6, 2023, and the report covers data up to September 30, 2024.
PS Plus subscribers largely met the 2023 price hike
Sony cited an increase in ARPU (average revenue per user), mainly due to the 2023 price hike and an increasing migration of subscribers to PS Plus Extra and Premium tiers, as the main driver behind the service's growth over the past year. This means that the PS Plus price hike did little to remove subscribers to the service or motivate Extra and Premium members to downgrade to the cheaper Essential tier. Since Sony has stopped updating PS Plus subscriber numbers, it is unclear how many PlayStation users currently subscribe to the service.
PS Plus provides a stable revenue base as sales on a US dollar basis increased 18% year over year. This is due to an increase in ARPU (average revenue per user) mainly due to a shift to higher service levels and the impact of price revisions.
It remains to be seen whether these results encourage Sony to consider future price increases for PS Plus. However, given the nature of subscription services, more PS Plus price hikes could be implemented in the future, regardless of whether the latest one helped the service's revenue or not. Thankfully, PS Plus has slowly added more value to subscribers, especially at the Premium tier, through the new PS2 emulator and an increased focus on classic games. The November 2024 PS Plus Extra and Premium add-ons also feature heavy hitters such as GTA 5, Dying Light 2, Like a dragon: Ishinand more.
PlayStation 5
Sony's PlayStation 5 is part of the ninth console generation and debuted with a launch lineup that included Demon's Souls and Astro's Playroom. The console comes with a Blu-ray disc, although a digital-only edition is available for a cheaper price.
