PlayStation Plus loses nearly 2 million subscribers last quarter but Sony's revenue from the service increased

Sony's gaming business won some and lost some in the second quarter of its fiscal year 2022. The company's latest financial results reveal it lost nearly two million PlayStation Plus subscribers, but its PS5 console shipments continued to increase in the same period.

The PlayStation maker released its financial results for the said quarter (ending last September) on Tuesday, showing that PS Plus subscribers went down by 1.9 million -- from 47.3 million in Q1 to 45.4 million. This marks the third consecutive quarter that Sony's gaming subscription service lost members, although FY2022 Q2's loss is the most significant.

This is a similar trend for the monthly average users (MAUs) of PS Plus in the same period. Sony reported that the PS Plus MAUs went down by 1 million from 103 million players in the preceding quarter.

Sony revamped PS Plus last June and introduced new subscription tiers, which cost more but offer some features previously offered on PS Now. The old version of PS Plus is currently known as PS Plus Essential for the same $9.99-per-month price. More perks and exclusive catalogs with hundreds of downloadable games are offered in the new membership plans called PS Plus Extra ($14.99 monthly) and Premium ($17.99 monthly). The latter exclusively offers cloud-based gaming.

However, the introduction of higher-priced membership plans might explain why Sony saw an increase in revenue from its subscription service in the same period. The company reported that its "Network Services" revenue, which includes earnings from PS Plus and advertising, was over ¥117 billion (around $791,300). That represents an increase of more than 10% from Q1.

"We see that this decrease results from a greater decline in user engagement amongst PS4 users than expected," Sony CFO Hiroki Totoki said during the earnings call (transcription via Seeking Alpha). But he also implied that Sony expects the subscriber count to improve, noting that PS Plus members using PS5 consoles remain significantly higher. "We are putting even more effort into accelerating the penetration of PS5 hardware to recover this user engagement going forward," Totoki added.

Meanwhile, Sony sold 3.3 million units of PS5 last quarter, bringing up its total lifetime sales to 25 million. Totoki noted that demand for the console remains strong, and Sony appears confident that the supply will eventually catch up. "Restrictions on the supply of materials and logistics have significantly eased, and the number of units produced during the quarter exceeded 6.5 million, progressing faster than planned," Totoki said about the PS5 production.

Harpal Singh/Unsplash