‘Some see it as a good move for Sony to grow while some see it as Sony giving in and having to follow the trend to be more competitive.’
Sony Group Corp., a giant Japanese video game console maker, finally launched a subscription service for PlayStation (PS) video games on Wednesday in a bid to rival Microsoft’s Game Pass.
Through the PlayStation Plus monthly membership plan at US $ 15 monthly and $ 18 monthly for the new premium plan, it provides a catalog of up to 400 games for PS4 and PS5 game console users.
In addition, cloud streaming for premium plans also adds 340 additional games from previous consoles such as PS2, PS3 and PSP.
Currently, Sony's subscription plan is divided into 3, namely PlayStation Plus Essential, PlayStation Plus Extra and PlayStation Plus Premium.
In addition, Sony also made the innovation by combining the current PlayStation Plus plan which has 48 million customers and PlayStation Now which has 3.2 million users.
According to chief gaming researcher at Ampere Analysis, Piers Harding-Rolls, Sony’s move should increase margins as more customers will be driven to higher plan subscriptions.
In general, Sony is still the world’s leading gaming console, where it has sold nearly 17 million PS5 units despite the issue of chip shortages in the market and pressure from the growth trend of gaming subscription services.
However, Sony's latest move to introduce a subscription service is seen as a response to or even following a trend, in which Microsoft Corp bought Activision Blizzard, the world's largest video game maker and gained access to the Xbox Game Pass subscription service.
As of January 2022, Sony's subscription service recorded 25 million paying customers with a minimum subscription price of $ 10 a month while for Microsoft, it reached an expected $ 4 billion in the same year and will come with an Xbox Games Pass offer price of $ 250 million a month.
Meanwhile, Sony's stock has plunged sharply and the company has suffered a loss of $ 20 billion following Microsoft's purchase of Activition, which gives access to Game Pass.
