PS Plus subscriber dip blamed on people going "outdoors" By Sean Lawson, 01 Nov 2022 FollowtopicsPlayStation PlusSean Lawson PS Plus has lost a large number of subscribers since the revamp to the service took place back in June. While some arguments for this make sense, one particular argument makes for strange reading.PS Plus has seen a dip in subscribers since the service was revamped back in June 2022, which brought out new tiers for people to subscribe to — Essential, Extra, and Premium. Just shy of 2 million PS5 and PS4 players have bowed out of the PS Plus service and Sony’s CFO Hiroki Totoki has chimed in on the situation — and it's all your fault for spending a little to much time outside. How could you do this to poor old PlayStation?PS Plus loses nearly 2 million subscribers since the revamp!PS4, third-party games, and the outside take the blame for PS Plus drop offSpotted by VGC, it seems Sony's recent financial results show that as of September 30th, 2022 PS Plus has 45.4 million subscribers, down from the previous quarter's 47.3 million subscribers. This shows that the revamp hasn't been all that successful in boosting PlayStation's PS Plus subscriber base — but there is a silver lining for Sony. Despite the dip in subscribers, Sony has actually earned more revenue from the new PS Plus revamp, which has seen a 10% increase from ¥106 billion to ¥116 billion since the last quarter. This certainly reflects that more players have opted for the higher tiers of the revamped service.When asked about the recent decline, Totoki responded saying: “There have been a declining number of members of PlayStation Plus. However, in the second quarter, we renewed our services and there hasn’t been a great momentum as a whole. Also, we didn’t make aggressive promotions during the second quarter. Therefore, in the future we are going to have more penetration on PS5 and we are going to have very good titles. In addition, we are able to make better promotions and we think we are able to recover.”PS Plus is on the decline.Responding to another question, Totoki said: “More people are now going outdoors, and we have yet to get out of the negative cycles. PS4 and third-party software sales have also been rather sluggish, and sales of catalogue titles have also been declining. Against that, PS5 engagement is quite high, so in Q3 we expect some recovery. We have strong titles from first-party (God of War Ragnarok, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, and The Callisto Protocol) and we have some seasonal effects. So, in Q3 we can see some recovery from the downturn trend — that’s our expectation.”Sony has also made a further response to the situation, citing the PS4 as one of the biggest factors in the PS Plus subscriber decline and putting emphasis on the fact it will focus on the PS5 and its ability to draw players back to PS Plus.Are you subscribed to a higher tier on PS Plus?“The number of PlayStation Plus subscriber accounts at the end of September decreased 4% from the end of June to 45.4 million accounts. We see that this decrease results from a greater decline in user engagement among PlayStation 4 (PS4) users than expected.“On the other hand, the ratio of PS Plus subscribers among PlayStation 5 (PS5) users remains at a level significantly higher than that of PS4. We are putting even more effort into accelerating the penetration of PS5 hardware to recover this user engagement going forward.”If you want some more PS Plus goodness make sure to check out our best PS Plus games list or our easiest platinums on PS Plus. A fair few shenanigans to unpack here, but what do you think of the decline in PS Plus subscribers? Are you one of the 2 million users to leave the service? Let us know in the comments below!PlayStation Plus Written by Sean LawsonSean is a Staff Writer with a focus on the geekiest Sony news. He writes stories about unobtainable PlayStation trophies, the best PS Plus games, as well as RPGs and Fighting games. He is also excited for Tekken 8, Dragon Age Dreadwolf, Baldur's Gate 3, and Dragon's Dogma 2 to launch on PS5. Sean’s favourite games include Mass Effect, Tomb Raider, Tekken, and Persona.