PlayStation Plus bound for yet another price increase amid struggling sales

It’s never good news to hear that the cost of a hobby may soon be in line for yet another price increase, but that's what might happen with PlayStation Plus and Xbox Game Pass.

It’s not uncommon for any subscription service to see a year-on-year price increase whether it be in the video game or TV and film industry. After all, it seems like Netflix is constantly raising its subscription costs.

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There once was a time when subscribing to the likes of Netflix and Prime Video was cheaper than cable or satellite TV. However, with the frequent price increases and the number of subscription-based platforms available, the value of such services lessens each year.

The same can be said for PlayStation Plus and Xbox Game Pass. While Xbox Game Pass increases with inflation, like any other service, quite recently, PlayStation Plus saw a big price hike and it didn't go down well with its customers. Now it seems, we may have to brace ourselves for yet another price hike.

In June 2022, industry expert and analyst, Mat Piscatella tweeted that the growth of video game subscription spending has stalled. What’s more, services such as PlayStation Plus and Xbox Game Pass were struggling to find new customers to join the existing members with the United States only seeing a 2% increase over April 2022.

And it's still stalled. March 2024 non-mobile video game subscription spending was only up 1% vs the April 2023 figures that got me to post the below last year. https://t.co/O0WQhQX023

— Mat Piscatella (@MatPiscatella) May 7, 2024

Now, in a recent tweet, Piscatella reports that subscription-based spending has pretty much stalled with “non-mobile video game subscription spending was only up 1% vs the April 2023”. So in other words, this could send the likes of Sony and Microsoft shareholders and executives into panic mode.

Sony and Microsoft could entice new customers to its subscription services by offering more value or perhaps even lowering the price a little. However, I think we all know both of those scenarios are unlikely, especially the latter.

With the spending needle effectively not budging much over the last two years, it might be wise to brace ourselves for yet another aggressive price increase with PlayStation Plus and Xbox Game Pass in the coming months.