Sony on PS Plus Price Increase: We Want to Make PlayStation Plus Great | Push Square

Back in August, Sony announced price increases for all tiers of PS Plus. Naturally, the news wasn’t especially well received by subscribers, and even now, months later, it’s still a touchy subject — especially since you could argue that the overall quality of PS Plus, in terms of game offerings, hasn’t improved since the price hike was implemented in September.

But what’s Sony’s take on the situation? Well, in a new interview with Barron’s, PlayStation exec Eric Lempel offers some degree of insight. To its credit, the publication asks Lempel directly about consumer criticism of the aforementioned price increase, to which he responds: “We want to make PlayStation Plus great. With our reboot last year and introducing the tier system, a lot of consumers have recognized that there’s a lot of value in PlayStation 5.”

It’s a bit of a nothing answer, but Lempel continues: “Like practically everything else in the world, we have to look at our pricing and we have to adjust to market conditions.”

Lempel then goes on try and contextualise the decision: “I’m happy to say, unlike a lot of other subscription services out there, we haven’t touched the PlayStation Plus pricing for 85% of the world in many years. So, this was the first time we did something there.” Hmmm.

Purely from a business perspective, we can understand why Sony wants to make more money from PS Plus. Recent reports strongly suggest that gaming subscription numbers have almost completely plateaued, with PS Plus itself having been stuck at around 50 million subscribers for years now — and it’s a very similar story with Xbox Game Pass.

But what do you make of the PS Plus price hike? Do you think Sony will strive to improve the service as a whole, or is Lempel just giving us the usual PR speak? Keep your wallet closed for now in the comments section below.

[source barrons.com]

About Robert Ramsey

Robert’s been a dedicated PlayStation fan since the days of Tekken 2, and he still loves a good dust up. When he’s not practising combos, he’s usually getting lost in the latest 100-hour RPG, or, y’know, replaying The Witcher 3.

Subscription gaming – the future!

…sadly.

The biggest problem here is that they are offering the same value for the gaming side, as they were before the price hike. Sure, the price increase is still in its infancy, but there hasn’t been any word from them that indicates a better value for the increased price.

That’s a lot of talking to say nothing.

As someone else mentioned, they offer nothing new for the lower tiers at a higher price so no value improvement. At least premium got cloud streaming.

Because they figure they can get away with it.

That’s the only reason.

If Sony thought they could get away with selling this many PS5s for $700, they’d do that. These businesses are out to generate a profit, so they do a lot of research and make adjustments based on what they think the market will bear.

I’m switching to the lowest tier when I need to renew. It’s just not worth the money for me.

Would love to see more indie day one games and their live service titles should also be day one

I didn’t bother to renew mine after the price increase.

@PixelDragon but not the only future. We still go to cinema for example…

After Starfield I’ll try to empty my PS backlog as much as possible until my subscription for Extra runs out in summer 2024. After that my PS5 will be solely for games I buy on disc and my Series X for Game Pass. My backlog has become ridiculous anyway.

Yeah, count me as another one who will be letting his (Premium) subscription lapse entirely once it comes due in November this year. Decided to limit myself to just GamePass or PS Plus as I make little use of either (Nintendo is basically free for its online so will be keeping that) and seeing I can get GamePass for $90 CAD a year through Costco and PS Extra is over $150 CAD it’s a no brainer. I’m just going to repurchase the few games I play online on PlayStation for the Xbox (mainly Super Mega League Baseball 4 and Street Fighter 6) and call it a day.

First you make a better product – then you raise the price, not the other way around Sony. This is BS x 1000.

I rarely was a subscriber to Plus since it first launched and now I probably will never subscribe again. I don’t play online and like to buy my games, so it just isn’t worth it for me. The only feature I want is PS5 game save cloud backup. On PS4 I can backup to a USB drive, but on PS5 they block that feature. It’s really unacceptable to hold people’s saves hostage like that.

PR talk as usual. I’m really starting to wonder if Sony has become arrogant again.

Sony make premium consoles not budget consoles if you want a budget console buy a series s and get gamepass.

@xDD90x I thought you could back up PS5 saves…could have sworn I backed up my FF VII Remake save…I’m going to have to have a double look now.

Some more day ones, not necessarily huge 1st party of course. Not expecting huge money making triple A blockbusters like Ragnarok, Horizon, TLoU3, Ghost of Tsushima 2 or Spiderman 2 to be day ones. A lot more indies day one, a lot more double A day one. Stray was a huge W for PS Plus. Up the day ones per year. Improve Premium, it’s not rocket science

@Jay767 what do budget consoles have to do with the topic?

Hahahahahaha prove it then Sony.

‘We want’ is all well and good but prove its worth first, up the price second. It was already too expensive.

A lot of words just to say: “We had to increase price due to worldwide inflation going on”

Because they know people will still pay it

Paid for the top sub and had over a year, and haven’t actually used it for anything, I’ll be scrapping it come renewal time. My problem is that I purchased everything from PS1 right through to now, so none of this content is worthwhile to me.

@CielloArc That’s BS though, inflation doesn’t apply to a subscription of this nature where there are zero raw materials being used.

@QuoVadis
You can backup PS4 game saves individually the same way it works on PS4, but for PS5 games, you can only do a full backup of all saves, and if you want to restore them you need to restore the whole console, which wipes the whole system, like a factory reset. It’s a slow process that involves multiple reboots; it’s incredibly inconvenient. Really only to be used to secure your save data in the event of a console failure.

Vote with your wallet and unsubscribe.

I think the answer to the question you are asking again will be of a similar ilk to last time. Another rather pointless article about something you already know the answer to.

I mean prices of thing natural go up but with the cost living etc and companies under pressure to give good pay rises the money has to come from somewhere.

My subscription runs out November 11, will not be renewed. If they had added value with the price increase, I would have renewed, but they didn’t, so I’m out. I have plenty of games already.

@Rafie starting to lol they’ve been bad all generation milking the fans for every penny

@Darude84 was thinking the same except mine runs out in 50 days.
Only have to play ff7 though so should be doable. Unless they drop something good next month.

Premium has me until next year and then its down a tier. Its not value for money. Think about it: Yeah, you are getting a thousand games – but 900 of them you probably won’t play. So in effect, you are paying for a service that you will NEVER get the most out of.

Wait for the sales. Buy the games you will actually play.

@Shad361 I do not endorse the dirty tricks that Microsoft is pulling, but this is why Sony having no competition is a terrible idea. They thought they were Billy Big Nuts after the success of the PS2 as well as anyone who had to deal with developing for PS3 discovered very quickly.

Still have premium first 59 euro a year. Now with tet the price increase is 79 euro per year. Think i,ll stay alive and be able to put food on the table. I think its great value for the price. For me personaly that is.

It hasn’t technically effected me yet as my current Premium membership runs till the end of November.

I’ll see what the Black Friday sales have to offer me but if there aren’t any good deals I’ll probably drop down from Premium to extra

I’ve got Extra until the start of Dec 2024. After that, I’ll be dropping to Essential at most or just dropping it entirely.

PS5 era has been a total let down so far, both in console functionality & lack of exclusives. Looks like classic Sony died with the PS4.

Don’t just talk about it prove it! Let us see were all the extra money is going aside from bonuses for the top execs. My guess is nothing will change and we will be getting everything we have been getting, I want to come in here and say I was wrong though

Not that I like the price increase, but it’s kind of funny to see everyone expecting the service to improve in some way because of it. When the price of a banana goes up at the grocery store, do you march to the front and demand to know how this banana will be better than the one you bought last week?

I’ve already canceled my subscription. It lapses next month and I don’t even care at this point. $80 as the base price is too high. I’ve been subscribed for years, but I didn’t even hesitate to unsubscribe.

Why a price hike? You’ll find your answers in a basic economics textbook. Hint: Sony is a business with the primary function of making money.

Sure some people may cancel but Sony’s view is it’ll be a net positive for them and their stock did increase I believe after the news.

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