Sony Interactive Entertainment’s president and CEO has told investors that the redesigned PlayStation Plus has had an extremely positive reception.

As we reported the day before yesterday, those who had stacked a PlayStation Plus subscription had to pay back the amount they were discounted on (so if they paid 50% off, they had to pay that amount back), plus on top of that, the cost of switching to a more expensive tier would be charged upfront once (e.g. if you had stacked five years, then for that amount of time). Then we wrote yesterday that Sony said it was just a glitch in the system, to which we say, sure, sure…

VGC has reported what Ryan told investors. Knowing him, he must have been looking at the numbers rather than the actual reaction, as he’s had some pretty questionable statements before (e.g. that people in the Middle East didn’t play games before PlayStation…): “We’re very proud of the work that we’ve done on this service, and it’s only two days [old], so it’s far too early, but the very initial market reaction is extremely positive. If we execute well as we implement this service, beyond Asia to Japan and then to the US and then to Europe, the possibility for us to significantly grow our subscriber base is real, particularly as sales of PlayStation 5 consoles start accelerate exceptionally rapidly.

The other vector of this, of course, is that the new service allows us to optimise not only the number of subscribers but to offer the possibility for subscribers to join our second tier of our third tier [of PlayStation Plus] and access a range of really attractive features and gaming propositions. And if we do that, if we are successful in that, not only will the number of subscribers grow, but the ARPU (average revenue per unit), the ARPU of the subscriber will also correspondingly increase. Hence, there are opportunities along both vectors, the number of subscribers and the ARPU of each of those subscribers.”

It is such dry business talk that you sleep while reading it. Sony’s target is to have 50 million PlayStation Plus subscribers by March 2023, the end of the financial year (they currently have 47.4 million). In Europe, the PS Plus switched to the new model on June 22. The Americas will see the switch on June 13.

Source: PSL