MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
Sony’s PlayStation Now subscription service now boasts more than 1 million subscribers five years after launch.
Making the announcement as part of its quarterly financial report, Sony said: “this is a great step toward the target we mentioned […] of growing subscribers by an average of more than 50 per cent per year. Through this renewal, we are aiming to assess the potential of cloud gaming services.”
However, in spite of recent changes to the service, Sony acknowledged to investors that PlayStation Now’s impact on this current fiscal year “is expected to be minimal”.
Launched in 2014, PlayStation Now gives gamers the option to stream “hundreds of PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 2 games on their PS4 system or PC devices, or download more than 300 PS4 games on their PS4 system”. Sony dropped the price for its PlayStation Now subscription service a few weeks ago, promising it was expanding its coverage to 19 territories and 70 per cent of its PlayStation 4 user base, and featuring “more blockbuster games”, “while adding marquee, limited-time titles such as Grand Theft Auto V and God of War to the more than 700 games available on the service”.
In other news, Sony also revealed today its current-gen system, PlayStation 4, has now shipped 102.8 million units, eclipsing both the original PlayStation and Nintendo Wii and making it the second-highest selling home console of all time, second only to the PlayStation 2 which boasts 155m lifetime sales. Its PlayStation business saw “significant decreases” over the period, with sales generated in its Game & Network Services division – which houses PlayStation – falling 17 per cent year-over-year (YoY) to ¥454.4 billion ($4.17 billion), down ¥95.7 billion ($878.5 million) on the same period last year.
It also announced it is shutting down its TV service, PlayStation Vue, on January 30th, 2020, stating it has decided to “remain focused on [its] core gaming business”. The news confirms recent rumours the company was looking to sell off its TV platform as the troubled service continued to lose money.
