PS+ Price Increase

[Stevieboy]

You would be correct.

 

Interesting read here - http://venturebeat.com/2016/07/28/sonys-playstation-division-accounted-for-78-of-its-q1-2016-profits/

 

So really, as a company Sony is doing pretty poorly. The gaming division is essentially keeping them afloat. Having 80% of your profit come from one division isn't the picture of a healthy business model.

 

With other areas floundering, I guess it makes sense to milk some more profit out of the gaming division.

 

I believe that as of earlier this year there were just over 20million Plus subs. Extracting an extra $10 from each of them is a $200 million dollar increase in revenue, and I would think a good chunk of that would be profit, although that is pure speculation. Maybe Plus is bleeding money, but that seems unlikely or they'd just cancel it.

 

Seems like this was a good route to add some more income with little consumer revolt.

 

That would be true if all regions were getting a price increase. This increase only affects the Americas.

[Mournblade05143]

Pretty sure he cited a common joke

 

 

or didn't you?

 

 

- It'd be nice if the subscription was like a menu where you could choose from different options.

 

$10 for cloud save per year

$10 for online gaming per year

$10/$30 for the games lineup as is/as it was per year

etc.

 

Whereas I still do not agree at all with paying for playing online, especially (but not alone) because of online trophies.

 

That would be the fairest thing but they would lose money cause many ppl would opt out of the main service.

[PooPooBlast]

My speculation is that since Sony will be releasing a lot of upcoming hardware such as the ps4 slim which should be selling at a lower cost, along with vr( even though they're selling it a profit, it could flunk like the PS move did), and the neo which could be sold at a loss.

Idk what to think of this increase until I see whether they improve their online quality like they promised( which they recently did with the 2 step verification program and upcoming patch 4.00), and perhaps to improve the quality of games.

I also noticed that some games had accessible online features without PS+ such as watchdogs' tracing and hacking, and Mirror's Edge Catalyst social play which requires you to have an EA account which is free.

We'll see how this pans out after the price increase and I'll decide later if it's worth it or not in the future. I hope it is though.

[awf9495]

I can't understand how people call independent games crap just because they don't come from Ubi, or EA.

The best games I've played from PS+ are indies.

I don't care if the devs spent millions or hundreds of dollars to develop the game. I only care if they are fun.

 

Hopefully they aren't calling all indie games crap as there are some fantastic ones. In fact, I think that is where we have seen the biggest drop in quality in PS+ as Sony gave us some of the best indie games in previous years (Limbo, Terraria, Transistor, Rogue Legacy, etc.) and outside of Helldivers and Gone Home, most of 2016's indie selections are middle-of-the-pack kinds of games that many haven't even heard of until they show up on IGC.  Would love to see indie games like The Witness, Inside, Salt and Sanctuary, The Banner Saga 2, and Firewatch show up, but I'm not holding my breath.

[diskdocx]

That would be true if all regions were getting a price increase. This increase only affects the Americas.

 

Fair point, but it should also be noted that not all subs pay by the year, and those that pay monthly or q3 mo will pay more than $10 per year extra. So it probably balances out.

 

In any case, I don't believe that Sony have ever released PS Plus sub numbers per region, but NA accounts for about 1/3 of the install base for PS3/PS4, so lets assume that 1/3 of all PS Plus subs will be paying an extra $10, that is still at least 70 million in increased revenue.

 

I also expect we will see the yearly Plus rates go up in the other regions within the year.

[starcrunch061]

Fair point, but it should also be noted that not all subs pay by the year, and those that pay monthly or q3 mo will pay more than $10 per year extra. So it probably balances out.

 

In any case, I don't believe that Sony have ever released PS Plus sub numbers per region, but NA accounts for about 1/3 of the install base for PS3/PS4, so lets assume that 1/3 of all PS Plus subs will be paying an extra $10, that is still at least 70 million in increased revenue.

 

I also expect we will see the yearly Plus rates go up in the other regions within the year.

 

How do you figure? If a bunch of people drop the service because of the price increase, I can't see how 70 million of additional revenue is guarantee.

 

I only mention this because Netflix took a big hit in North America when they recently increased the price of their service (there was even an article in The Economist about it). Gamers aren't nearly as savvy of consumers as Netflix subscribers, but still - with the (often long-term) subscriptions, it's too early to tell if this is a good move, revenue-wise.

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

How do you figure? If a bunch of people drop the service because of the price increase, I can't see how 70 million of additional revenue is guarantee.

 

I only mention this because Netflix took a big hit in North America when they recently increased the price of their service (there was even an article in The Economist about it). Gamers aren't nearly as savvy of consumers as Netflix subscribers, but still - with the (often long-term) subscriptions, it's too early to tell if this is a good move, revenue-wise.

 

The public will never know unless they Sony tells them (and doesn't lie about it). We don't know how many subscribers there are now, how many there will be, and what they intend to do with the money. It might all go into paying devs more to put there game on PS+ but as that payment goes on a case by case basis and is not open information, none of us can tell.

[AdventCloud7]

And Sony, Describe what PlayStation users looks like!

Then why you tryin' to fuck us like a bitch, Sony?

 

Sony,

 

[MilanYildirim]

Sony,

 

Normally, your ass would be dead as fucking fried chicken, but you happen to pull this shit while I'm in a transitional period so I don't wanna kill you, I wanna help you. But I can't give you this case, it don't belong to me. Besides, I've already been through too much shit this morning over this case to hand it over to your dumb ass. 

Guess who'll be renewing his subs ;D

[Valyrious]

I guess we now know the real reason for the price increase.

They had to afford Clemments' return.

 

[audiopile]

SALE PRICE until June 16th, back to previous price.

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

17 hours ago, audiopile said:

SALE PRICE until June 16th, back to previous price.

 

A game store here in Netherlands/Belgium has the twelve month subscription on a good sale as well, bought myself a year earlier this week since my subscription was about to end soon anyway.