This price hike can go either way for Sony and its consumers
Eric Lempel, senior vice president at Sony PlayStation spoke to Barron, where he defended their recent decision to increase their PlayStation Plus subscription service. He also shared the company’s thoughts on why they don’t launch their titles on their subscription service on day one similar to Gamepass.
Barron asked Lempel if he could justify the recent PS Plus price increase, which is a question most of us would have asked. Ps Plus’s Premier tier is currently costing close to $40, which is not pocket change for the average gamer.
Lempel responded with the following, “Like practically everything else in the world, we have to look at our pricing and we have to adjust to market conditions.” The executive added, “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.”
He also mentioned that previously Sony forgo raised their prices for almost 85% of the world for several years. Something a majority of other subscription sellers do not do. Lempel then said that Sony raised PS Plus prices last in 2017.
Ps Plus’s price increase was announced in August this year. They didn’t just increase the price though. Sony did make an announcement that some new features will be coming to their subscription service. They mentioned that a movie catalogue will be coming to the service and the PS5 system will be receiving game streaming services as well.
Other subscription service providers all raised their prices in the last year. Microsoft raised their Xbox Game Pass prices in July. In other entertainment areas, Apple TV+, Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, and sever others have raised their subscription prices in the past year as well.
Barron then asked the question that many gamers have been asking. Barron asked Lempel what his thoughts were regarding Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass service. He then went on to ask what Lempel’s opinions were on Xbox launching their new titles on day one of their Xbox Game Pass service.
Something Sony does not do at this stage with their PS Plus service. Lempel’s response was “very different” from Game Pass. He also said that he won’t be drawn into talking about launching their first-party titles on their PS Plus service.
“It comes down to what you’re going to get in the service in terms of the type of game and the quality of games. I can’t comment on what the competition is doing. But with us, we feel we’re offering a great curated catalogue of games, as well as other features and services with PlayStation Plus,” he said. “It’s a very different offering, but it’s one that resonated with consumers.
Since we introduced the tiers, we’ve seen a third of the Plus user base opt for the upper two tiers, which was more than we had expected.”