Support NeoGAF

[havoc00]

PS Plus is back on the rise after a slightly rocky time following the service's big overhaul in 2022. As per Sony's latest financial results, the network services category — which comprises revenue from PS Plus and advertising — is up quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year, meaning it's comfortably improved since moving to the current three tier system.

In the fourth quarter of financial year 23, network services generated approximately $959 million of revenue, a marked improvement over FY22's Q4 (~$760.6 million). For FY23 as a whole, revenue for PS Plus and advertising reached roughly $3.5 billion, up quite significantly on FY22's total of $2.9 billion.

The numbers pretty much speak for themselves — PS Plus is in its strongest position since the overhaul. It's worth noting the price increase of the service, which saw all three tiers gain larger price tags last summer. Additionally, Sony stopped disclosing PS Plus subscriber numbers in 2022, so we don't know exactly how that figure looks for FY23. The last official number, from Q4 of FY22, is 47.4 million subs.

Sony's going to be pretty happy with this result, though, which will of course have contributed to its better year overall.

PS Plus Revenue Is on the Up Following 2022's Multi-Tiered Overhaul

That's a nice extra

www.pushsquare.com

 

[ComputerBlue]

That tends to happen when you jack up the price.

 

[adamsapple]

Another notch in the "Subscription Future" belt, boys.

 

[mitch1971]

That tends to happen when you jack up the price.

So, people are happy with it still even after a price hike.

 

[ComputerBlue]

So, people are happy with it still even after a price hike.

How do you come to that conclusion?

 

[cash_longfellow]

Until people realize the value is complete ass. I’m letting my shit expire in June…cool, it was panic buying in on a larger scale than the last Netflix sub boost. They are going to be ultra worried when shit catches up to them in a year or so after people stacked memberships for cheap a year and a half ago. Better start dropping better shit than ftp Destiny 2 DLC if they want people to keep buying in. To me, as a lifelong ps plus fan and subscriber since the beginning, I’m out. Shit is trash and no longer worth what they are asking…and not even close.

 

[born free]

^Agreed.

They are following same mistakes with Xbox and Gamepass. Nintendo and steam are set for this current/next generation. Which is a good thing; once PlayStation is humbled they will be forced to adapt again ala ps3 to ps4 .

 

[violence]

^Agreed.

They are following same mistakes with Xbox and Gamepass. Nintendo and steam are set for this current/next generation.

I’m imagining a “Nintendo versus Steam” world and how weird that would be.

 

[mitch1971]

How do you come to that conclusion?

Because people are still members.

 

[feynoob]

Hiroki Totoki​

 

[Humdinger]

Any way to tell what percentage of Playstation's overall revenue comes from PS+ subscriptions?

 

[yurinka]

PS Plus is back on the rise after a slightly rocky time following the service's big overhaul in 2022.

Network services (PS Plus + PS Now) revenue has been growing every year since minimum FY17:

 

[feynoob]

Any way to tell what percentage of Playstation's overall revenue comes from PS+ subscriptions?

Nothing is up. Just the price of the brick went up. What was 60$ is now 10$(120$) monthly or $80 yearly.

 

[Humdinger]

Nothing is up. Just the price of the brick went up. What was 60$ is now 10$(120$) monthly or $80 yearly.

Ok, but that doesn't answer my question. Question is what percentage is PS+ of PS's overall revenue? Never mind, I can figure it out from the table above.

edit: It's 12.7%. However, that includes PS Now, which I am going to assume is a small amount. So maybe 12% overall.

 

[Rockman33]

I’d like to see how many subscribers they have now compared to before. The price hike makes this hard to know if this is good.

 

[feynoob]

Network services (PS Plus + PS Now) revenue has been growing every year since minimum FY17:

That is because the base cost is up.

 

[Trogdor1123]

I’m not renewing mine. I quit when they raised the price. I’ll just head to pc gaming

 

[ByWatterson]

That tends to happen when you jack up the price.

Or when you sell almost 21 million units in a year I dunno

 

[Hero of Spielberg]

I really need Sony to activate game streaming in Australia. I use it so much with GP and it's one of the main reasons I use GP more than PS+. I can't be fucked deleting / movinggg games to download some 100GB beheamoth just to try it out.

Also, I've noticed a few older games that pique my interest on the highest tier (forget the name of it). Does anyone with that tier recommend it?

 

[MALpractice311]

Give it another year. I think we'll start to see the true effects of the price hike. I, myself, let my basic PS+ sub expire in February and have no plan to re-up, unless I can find it on sale for $40.

 

[ReBurn]

I’m not renewing mine. I quit when they raised the price. I’ll just head to pc gaming

For the first time since PS4 launched I didn't renew mine. If they do a discount at some point I may renew but not at full price.

 

[Trogdor1123]

For the first time since PS4 launched I didn't renew mine. If they do a discount at some point I may renew but not at full price.

Same, maybe, even then I don’t know. I’ve been with ps+ since day 1 too.

 

[ArtHands]

Shows that increasing the PS+ price is a smart decision. Won’t be shock if they starts doing it more frequently

 

[reinking]

For the first time since PS4 launched I didn't renew mine. If they do a discount at some point I may renew but not at full price.

It sucked that the holiday sale was for new subscriptions only. to us long time subscriber.

 

[K' Dash]

Good news for low IQ fanboys, really bad news for regular consumers.

 

[Esca]

I've been a ps+ member since PS3 days but the large increase in price and the sale price being lackluster as well I cancelled my sub back in February this year.

 

[Loomy]

Almost like Jim Ryan and his team knew wtf they were doing.

 

[newtypepilot]

They had bet jacking price would offset the amount of people not renewing. Furthermore, I'm curious how many got "duped" by the autorenewal.

 

[SportsFan581]

It would be unusual to add higher priced tiers and get less revenue. This seems like the expected result.

These results also muddy the waters when talking about losing some of the $20 sales of older games by sticking them on the service, a certain amount of this revenue does offset that.

 

[LavitzSlambert]

I stacked several years to lock in a Premium at a price close to Essential. Would not sub at these inflated prices though.

 

[DeepSpace5D]

I really need Sony to activate game streaming in Australia. I use it so much with GP and it's one of the main reasons I use GP more than PS+. I can't be fucked deleting / movinggg games to download some 100GB beheamoth just to try it out.

Also, I've noticed a few older games that pique my interest on the highest tier (forget the name of it). Does anyone with that tier recommend it?

I personally love the fact they are adding games like PS1/PSP classics remastered with trophy support and quality of life improvements. It’s made me go back to try multiple older games. They are included in the highest tier of PS+ Premium, but they can also be bought individually if you don’t feel like subbing to the highest tier.

I prefer to just buy the ones I want.

 

[Katatonic]

That's what happens when you put out desirable product.

 

[onQ123]

Be quiet if companies find out that raising prices bring in more money we are all in trouble

 

[Lord Malachite]

These numbers aren't surprising. The Essential tier dwarfs the Extra/Premium levels in sub numbers last was checked. And the price hike clearly didn't cause a mass exodus. Why should it? At the end of the day, it went up $20. Breaking the annual cost into a monthly one, what used to cost $5 a month now costs $6.67. Inflation has literally caused the price of everything to jump. This was small in comparison. It's the age old story--gaming forums and social media full of outrage but which represent only a tiny fraction of the overall market. For every person who loudly cancelled there were likely ten who stayed, more than making up the difference. Sony isn't shedding any tears.

On a related note, who buys services like PS+ and Gamepass at full MSRP? It's always better to wait for sales. Sony has always done a minimum of two significant sales for years--one around Days Of Play and the other around Black Friday. If you're paying top asking price for these kinds of subs, you're doing it wrong.

 

[Generic]

^Agreed.

They are following same mistakes with Xbox and Gamepass. Nintendo and steam are set for this current/next generation. Which is a good thing; once PlayStation is humbled they will be forced to adapt again ala ps3 to ps4 .

Nintendo charges $60 for 7 years old games.

 

[Hero of Spielberg]

I personally love the fact they are adding games like PS1/PSP classics remastered with trophy support and quality of life improvements. It’s made me go back to try multiple older games. They are included in the highest tier of PS+ Premium, but they can also be bought individually if you don’t feel like subbing to the highest tier.

I prefer to just buy the ones I want.

Thanks for the input. Very helpful! Yes, I think buying the individual ones I am after is probably the way to go.

 

[lh032]

^Agreed.

They are following same mistakes with Xbox and Gamepass. Nintendo and steam are set for this current/next generation. Which is a good thing; once PlayStation is humbled they will be forced to adapt again ala ps3 to ps4 .

im pretty sure Sony aware of this, they are not stupid.

 

[Killjoy-NL]

So, people are happy with it still even after a price hike.

Let's be honest, you need PS+ for online multiplayer.

 

[DeepSpace5D]

Thanks for the input. Very helpful! Yes, I think buying the individual ones I am after is probably the way to go.

They’re usually $10 a pop but can go down to $5 during sales sometimes. If you don’t care about owning them you could also just sub to premium for a month or two and then cancel once you’ve had your fill of the classics.

 

[ArtHands]

That tends to happen when you jack up the price.

shows that there are still rooms to jack up the price further without impacting the numbers

 

[Hero of Spielberg]

They’re usually $10 a pop but can go down to $5 during sales sometimes. If you don’t care about owning them you could also just sub to premium for a month or two and then cancel once you’ve had your fill of the classics.

That's actually a good idea. That way I can try them out.

 

[Fabieter]

So, people are happy with it still even after a price hike.

It's way overpriced take the online play requirement out and see 80% people cancel the sub.

 

[ZehDon]

So, people are happy with it still even after a price hike.

If memory serves, they lost around a million subscribers after the initial tiered approach was introduced, but their revenue still went up. Making more money from less people appears to be Sony's overall strategy this generation. So far, it's working.

 

[GHound]

Wait so revenue only increased ~20.7% despite increasing annual prices more than 30% across the board?
edit:half asleep math error

 

[Puscifer]

We live in the dumbest future

 

[Dazraell]

I personally love the fact they are adding games like PS1/PSP classics remastered with trophy support and quality of life improvements. It’s made me go back to try multiple older games. They are included in the highest tier of PS+ Premium, but they can also be bought individually if you don’t feel like subbing to the highest tier.

I prefer to just buy the ones I want.

This is one of the things I do like, constant stream of enhanced PS1/PSP games is a very positive side effect of these multi-tier subs. I also don't pay for the highest tier and just buy games I want as I prefer to have them in my library and play them whenever I want to play instead of being dependent on the sub expiration date

But overall, I'm not happy about PS+ as a service and if it wouldn't be a necessity cause of multiplayer, cloud saves sync and it being a requirement to being able to play previously claimed PS+ games, I wouldn't even pay for the lowest tier

 

[DeepSpace5D]

This is one of the things I do like, constant stream of enhanced PS1/PSP games is a very positive side effect of these multi-tier subs. I also don't pay for the highest tier and just buy games I want as I prefer to have them in my library and play them whenever I want to play instead of being dependent on the sub expiration date

But overall, I'm not happy about PS+ as a service and if it wouldn't be a necessity cause of multiplayer, cloud saves sync and it being a requirement to being able to play previously claimed PS+ games, I wouldn't even pay for the lowest tier

Agree on both points. Im really enjoying replaying the classics and going for the trophies. And I wouldn’t have PS+ either if not for the cloud saves and times I want to play an online multiplayer game. I went down to the bare minimum of essential at least, but it would be nice to not need it at all.

 

[DenchDeckard]

I think I bought like 5 years of ps plus when they did that sale a while back. I'm good for a bit

 

[havoc00]

I think I bought like 5 years of ps plus when they did that sale a while back. I'm good for a bit

Did you enjoy foamstars

 

[xrnzaaas]

Give it another year. I think we'll start to see the true effects of the price hike. I, myself, let my basic PS+ sub expire in February and have no plan to re-up, unless I can find it on sale for $40.

Yep, a lot of people have long-running subs and besides PS+ doesn't offer cheap monthly options like Game Pass. You have to commit to at least 1 full year before deciding if you want to cancel, downgrade or extend.

I personally love the fact they are adding games like PS1/PSP classics remastered with trophy support and quality of life improvements. It’s made me go back to try multiple older games. They are included in the highest tier of PS+ Premium, but they can also be bought individually if you don’t feel like subbing to the highest tier.

I prefer to just buy the ones I want.

Unfortunately that's not always the case. The recent release of Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare lacks trophies and any improvements (for instance there are still loadings between screens). I'm not going to pay 10$ just for being able to run the game on PS4/PS5, there needs to be at least minimum effort in making it better.