PlayStation Reports Strong Q2 Subscriber Revenue, Though Lost 1.9 PlayStation Plus Subs

Sony has revealed its quarterly earnings for PlayStation during Q2 2022. In it, the company confirms it has seen one of its strongest overall quarters for subscription revenue. However, it has a reported loss of 1.9 million subscribers to PlayStation Plus.

During Q2 2022, PlayStation saw the total subscriber count of PlayStation Plus fall from 47.3 to 45.4 million. This comes during the same quarter that PlayStation relaunched the service, adding new tiers with a premium price tag. With the relaunch, PlayStation brought a slew of new perks. On top of access to online services and cloud saves, the Extra tier adds access to a large offering of PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 games. The Premium tier introduces classic titles going all the way back to the original PlayStation.

This marks the third consecutive quarterly decline for PlayStation Plus. On the surface level, this very well could mark a moment of hardship for the subscription service. However, while subscriber numbers are taking a dip, the introduction of higher tiers actually helped PlayStation achieve higher subscriber revenue.

Translated by VGC, Sony’s CFO Hiroki Totoki notes that the decline in subscribers may be partially attributed to the declining third-party game and PlayStation 4 sales and “more people going outdoors” following the storm of the pandemic. “There have been a declining number of members of PlayStation Plus,” Totoki states. “However, in the second quarter we renewed our services and there hasn’t been a great momentum as a whole. Also, we didn’t make aggressive promotions during the second quarter.

According to the report, PlayStation reports that revenue across “Network Services” increased from 100 billion yen to 117 billion yen (roughly $919 million to 1.07 billion CAD) year-over-year. Network Services include PlayStation Plus, PlayStation Network ad revenue, and PlayStation’s now-discontinued PlayStation Now service. Therefore, it appears as though there are fewer subscribers, more are paying for the higher tiers.

PlayStation also reports it has now sold 25 million PlayStation 5 consoles as of Q2 2022. Between July and September 30th, PlayStation saw the sale of 3.3 million units, the same as what was shipped during the same quarter in 2021. 62.5 million physical game copies were sold during the quarter. Though, that shows a drop of nearly 20 percent in comparison to the same quarter in 2021. Revenue from PlayStation is up from 645.4 to 720.7 billion yen (around 5.9 billion to 6.6 billion CAD) YoY.

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