Sony claims the service has been impacted by a "greater decline in user engagement among PlayStation 4 users than expected."
PlayStation Plus has lost 1.9 million subscribers since it was relaunched as a more serious Xbox Game Pass competitor.
The news comes straight from Sony's latest fiscal report, with the console maker noting that "the number of PlayStation Plus subscriber accounts at the end of September decreased 4 percent from the end of June to 45.4 million accounts."
The "all-new PlayStation Plus" was rolled out in June 2022 and sought to compete with Xbox Game Pass by offering three subscriptions tiers called Essential, Extra, and Deluxe, with the more expensive options letting users access up to 700 titles including some first-party releases and classic offerings.
Although the revamped service doesn't exactly mirror Xbox Game Pass – Microsoft's service offers day one access to all first-party titles, while Sony's only grants access to select first-party content with no guarantees of launch day access – it's clear Sony was attempting to carve itself a slice of the piping hot Netflix-of-games pie.
According to Sony's own numbers, however, the number of PlayStation Plus subscribers actually fell to 45.4 million users in Q2 FY22 from 47.3 million users in Q1 FY22. The number of monthly active users on PlayStation Plus also dropped to 102 million from 103 million during that time.
While some users have seemingly chosen to bid farewell to PlayStation Plus since the rebrand, it's worth pointing out that Network Services revenue has increased despite that drop off, rising to 117 billion yen in Q2 FY22 from 106.5 billion yen in Q1 FY22. That uptick could indicate that the higher priced premium tiers are offsetting the fact some users are abandoning ship.
Analysing the situation, Sony claimed the decrease is the result of a "greater decline in user engagement among PlayStation 4 users than expected," suggesting the ageing last-generation console is to blame for the downturn, and not PlayStation Plus itself.
"The ratio of PS Plus subscribers among PlayStation 5 users remains at a level significantly higher than that of PS4," added Sony. "We are putting even more effort into accelerating the penetration of PS5 hardware to recover this user engagement going forward."
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