Play Station Plus subscribers have dropped by nearly 2 million since the renewed service launched in June.
This is according to SonyThe latest subscriber estimates, which were published on Tuesday as part of Financial results for the second quarter of the fiscal year 2022 First full quarter since the launch of the revamped PS Plus.
Despite the renewal, the PS Plus subs fell for the third consecutive quarter. The total number of subscribers was 45.4 million for the three months ending September 30, 2022, down from 47.3 million in the previous quarter.
The number of PlayStation Network monthly active users (MAUs) also declined during the three-month period at 102 million, down from 104 million a year earlier and 103 million in the previous quarter. This appears to be the lowest MAU number for Sony since it began reporting this data in early 2020.
God of War Ragnarok – PlayStation demo video
However, despite the decline in subscribers, revenue from Sony’s network services – which includes PS Plus and advertising – increased 10% from 106 billion yen to 116 billion yen.
This means that Sony’s gaming division is making more revenue per subscriber than it used to be, likely reflecting absorbing the more expensive subscription levels offered by PS Plus.
When asked about the dip on Tuesday’s earnings call (transcribed by VGC), Sony CFO Hiroki Totoki blamed the third-party game’s rejection and Playstation 4 Sales and “more people get outdoors”.
The executive said he expects the number of subscribers to recover over the company’s next quarter, in part due to the impact call of duty modern warfare 2 And the God of War Ragnarok.
“There has been a decline in the number of PlayStation Plus members,” he said. “However, we renewed our services in the second quarter and there was not much momentum as a whole. Also, we did not have strong promotions during the second quarter.
“So, in the future we will have more hacks on PS5 and we will have very good titles. In addition, we are able to give better promotions and we think we can recover.”
In response to another investor about the PS Plus numbers, he added: “More people are now getting outdoors, and we still have to get out of the negative cycles. Sales of PS4 and third-party software have also been rather slow, and sales of catalog titles are down.”
“Against that, PS5 participation is very high, so we expect some recovery in the third quarter. We have strong first-party titles, and we have some seasonal impacts. So, in the third quarter, we can see some recovery from the downturn trend — that is our expectation.”
Modernization
Sony published an additional statement about the drop in PS Plus subscribers, claiming that it was affected by a “more decline in user engagement among PlayStation 4 (PS4) users than expected.”
The number of PlayStation Plus subscriber accounts by the end of September decreased by 4% compared to the end of June to 45.4 million accounts. We see that this decrease is due to a greater decrease in user engagement among PlayStation 4 (PS4) users than expected.
On the other hand, the proportion of PS Plus subscribers among PlayStation 5 (PS5) (PS5) users remain at a much higher level than PS4. We are doing more to accelerate the penetration of PS5 hardware to restore this user interaction in the future.”
On the topic of third-party big releases, Sony cited Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and said it had a “good release”, so “for the third quarter we have very high expectations.”
Sony last week claimed modern war Version 2 was the PlayStation Store’s biggest launch of Call of Duty ever, including pre-orders and first-day sales.
Revamped PlayStation Plus Launched in June With the addition of premium levels, which added a library of hundreds of modern and classic games.
Sony previously attributed User and subscriber numbers drop to the boost provided by stay-at-home restrictions during the pandemic. Compared to the pre-pandemic period (the third quarter of fiscal year 2019), the number of PS Plus subscribers has increased by more than 6 million.
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