Last year’s pricing increase for Xbox Game Pass went down like a lead balloon on social media, but it doesn’t appear to have affected the service’s long-term success.
Certainly, some may have changed tiers or unsubscribed completely, but I don’t think Microsoft’s coffers felt too strong of a hit.
It’s with that in mind that PlayStation Plus looks set to potentially follow suit.
At the time of writing, a price hike has not been outright confirmed, but Sony did seemingly make reference to such a move in its recent Q3 earnings call, as reported by Guru3D.
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In a translated transcript of the call, posted by Seeking Alpha, an attendee of the call asks as “unknown executive” about how RAM shortages and price hikes could affect PlayStation.
The executive explained that the PS5 is in its sixth year, with 92 million units having been sold.
“We have been able to develop a very robust ecosystem,” they said.
They went on to explain that in this fiscal year, “the majority of the sales is software content and network service, and these areas, next fiscal year onwards, are going to continue to make significant contributions”.
Software Pricing Could Increase to Offset Rising Costs of Hardware Production
Those components will “not be impacted by the memory price” directly, but it’s believed they could rise in order to make up for hardware pricing issues.
“As for the new PlayStation hardware sales due to cost increases, there will be some impact,” the executive continued.
“However, it's in the latter part of the life cycle. So that means that in terms of hardware sales, it's been expected all along that it will gradually decline or slow down.
“So there are several or a wide range of choices or options that we can take. So that's our basic thinking there.”
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Already, PS5 sales are slowing, so you can see why increasing pricing isn’t exactly a lucrative option. It does make far more sense to offset that elsewhere on software and services sales.
Of course, that isn’t very consumer friendly, and PlayStation Plus subscribers are already bracing themselves for the worst.
“I will downgrade from premium if this happens,” remarked Reddit user gamerkaka1.
“This is the worst possible outcome for me. I'll probably unsub,” added Darkone539.
“I'd take a cheaper version of PS Plus where I don't even get free games. I just want to play online and with my friends. I barely ever play the free games. Just stop raising the prices, it's getting too much for me,” commented boxinggoose.
This is all amidst a rather lacklustre start to the year for PlayStation Plus. I can’t say any of the free game line-ups have dazzled so far.
As I said, no price increases have yet been confirmed so do take all speculation with a pinch of salt.
All we know for certain is that tomorrow will bring us a reveal of February’s extra and premium tier offerings. Let’s hope they deliver.
Topics: Sony, PlayStation, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Plus