Sony has big plans for PS Plus: According to the current financial report, the subscription service should generate even more profit. However, the PlayStation manufacturer does not want to achieve this with the next price increase, but rather with improvements that are intended to lure players into the more expensive levels.
Just last month, PlayStation players – more precisely, subscribers of PS Plus – take a setback: Sony raised prices for monthly and three-month subscriptions to PS Plus Essential, Extra and Premium. For example, the Essential tariff rose to 9.99 euros per month.
But although numerous gamers were correspondingly frustrated, a look at Sony’s latest annual report makes it clear that they are far from having enough: PS Plus sales are expected to increase even further in the future.
However, anyone who now fears a further price increase can breathe a sigh of relief for the time being. Instead, there may even be a reason to be happy: Sony wants to boost revenue this time through attractive improvements.
PS Plus should be “continuously improved”
Since Sony is apparently aware that it cannot keep tightening the price thumbscrews after the recent increases without risking a wave of layoffs, the PlayStation manufacturer is now pursuing a different plan.
Accordingly, the PS Plus offer should be further upgraded in terms of content. But the goal is not just to gain new subscribers. In the best case scenario, the millions of existing users of the service should switch to the more expensive levels – namely Extra and Premium – which should become more attractive as a result of the planned upgrades.
“Sony is focused on driving the profitable growth of PS Plus by increasing user engagement, continuously improving service offerings and content, and inviting users to upgrade to higher tariffs,” it says Financial report.
Falling PS5 sales: Why PS Plus is now so important
The fact that Sony is now focusing on services such as PS Plus in order to further boost its own sales has a serious background: hardware sales fell significantly in the last quarter. Compared to the same period last year around 1.3 million PS5 consoles fewer discontinued.
And things aren’t looking any better for the coming months either. Sony is forecasting one for the rest of the 2026/2027 financial year Sales decline of six percent in the PlayStation division.
So it’s clear: Since fewer and fewer PS5 consoles are being sold and fewer new players are being added, the money has to come from somewhere else – namely from the pockets of the existing community. After all, the number of PlayStation Network users increased by one million compared to the previous year.
The question that now arises: What do the promised improvements for PS Plus actually mean? While the extra tariff with its game library is still considered a solid deal for many PS5 owners, the premium level is particularly criticized because it lacks real added value – even if the number of subscribers here has increased within the last twelve months increased by 18 percent are.
In keeping with this, Sony sent out a survey to subscribers at the end of May to specifically find out how and in which areas PS Plus could be optimized. Of course, it remains to be seen which improvements will actually be implemented in the end.
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