You are probably aware of the bad news that hit PlayStation gamers this month: Sony has decided to increase the prices of its PS Plus subscription service, which allows online play and access to free games every month. The new prices are as follows:
- PS Plus Essential subscription: 71.99 euros per year instead of 59.99 euros
- PS Plus Extra subscription: 125.99 euros per year instead of 99.99 euros
- PS Plus Premium subscription: 151.99 euros per year instead of 119.99 euros
This represents an increase of 20%, 26% and 43% respectively for each formula. Suffice to say that Sony is making French players pay a high price, who are the most affected by this increase. Indeed, in other countries such as the United States or the United Kingdom, prices remain unchanged or increase very slightly.
Sony justifies this decision by the need to continue offering high quality games and value-added benefits to its subscription service. But what are these advantages? What are these high quality games? It is clear that PS Plus has not been very generous in recent months, with games offered that are not very attractive or are already available on other platforms.
For example, in September, subscribers were treated to Overcooked: All You Can Eat , a cooperative cooking game released in 2016, Hitman 2 , a stealth game released in 2018, and Predator: Hunting Grounds , an asymmetric multiplayer game released in 2020. Nothing new or exclusive.
In addition, there are very few games exclusive to the Playstation 5: Games excluded on PS5
Is Sony making fun of gamers and profiting from inflation?
One might think that Sony needs to increase its prices to compensate for the economic crisis linked to the Covid-19 pandemic, which has led to inflation in production and distribution costs. But this is not the case.
Sony made record profits in 2020 thanks to the sale of its new console, the PS5, and the increase in demand for video games during confinement. Sony sold no less than 4.5 million PS5s in 2020 and generated a staggering turnover of 883.2 billion yen (or approximately 6.98 billion euros) with its gaming division. So Sony doesn't need money, it already has plenty of it.
So why increase the prices of PS Plus? Because Sony can do it? Sony knows that gamers are captive to its service, that they have no choice if they want to play online or take advantage of PlayStation exclusives.
Do you think Sony is using inflation as an excuse to increase its margins? And are you thinking of boycotting Sony?
