Sony is making no secret of the fact that the company is seriously considering increasing the price of its PlayStation Plus subscriptions. The goal is to “maximize profitability.”
Last April, Sony announced a price increase for its PS5 models. But its consoles might not be the only ones in the ecosystem to see their prices rise. In a presentation on the PlayStation division's upcoming business strategy, Hideaki Nishino, president of Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) and successor to Jim Ryan, hinted that the company could soon adjust the price of PS Plus subscriptions to make more money.
“We will continue to add value and adjust our pricing strategy dynamically to maximize profitability,” he said. The second part of the sentence leaves little room for interpretation: you will have to pay more to continue accessing PlayStation Plus. The question now is when.
We are heading towards a PlayStation Plus price increase
He mentions a “value addition” for the service to justify such an increase. We don't know more about this, but it could involve expanding the game catalog, introducing new features, better integrating cloud gaming, or providing access to new content. We're thinking, for example, of films and series, Sony being a major player in these industries.
In any case, we shouldn't expect PlayStation Plus to become like Game Pass. Sony executives have been saying for years that they don't intend to copy this model and that big exclusives are not intended to be released day one on their subscription service. PlayStation wants to maintain this premium brand image, which doesn't sell its games cheaply, and which sells them at a high price because they're worth it.
This is in sharp contrast to Xbox's vision, which is banking on the subscription system, taking the transformation of music and television consumption as an example. Recently, Shuei Yoshida, former head of SIE, estimated that subscriptions like Xbox Game Pass could become dangerous for the video game industry.
0 Comments