14 DAY TRIAL // Sony’s head honcho Kaz Hirai has revealed that approximately half of the adopters of its next-gen home entertainment system, the PlayStation 4, have also subscribed to the PlayStation Plus service.
Since the latest reports show that Sony sold over 7 million consoles so far, that means that close to 3.5 million owners have a subscription, in addition and to the PlayStation 3 ones.
The info that company boss Kah Hirai provided during a corporate strategy meeting with Sony investors is difficult to quantify into a concrete heap of cash, due to the fact that subscription options vary in costs.
However, even at the cheapest point of 12 month subs, it still means that Sony will be earning a hefty sum per month, and that’s just from the newly acquired PlayStation 4 owners.
That doesn’t mean that Sony is getting all this money for nothing though, as the service is recognized to be the most rewarding for its customers, as far as return on investment is concerned, with Sony periodically offering a great selection of free games to its subscribers, in addition to attractive discounts on choice titles, for all its three major platforms.
Another turning point for the company represents the reveal that the PlayStation 4 is now at the point where it’s making a profit from hardware sales alone, as opposed to last year, when the company stated that it would follow the traditional business model of selling its consoles at a loss.
Even if that were still the case, the company would quickly recoup the loss as soon as a user would start buying games and a subscription to the PlayStation Plus service, according to Sony Japan executive Masayasu Ito.
The positive turn of events made Sony confident in the fact that its strong hardware sales as well as the growing penetration of its digital services are a clear sign that the PlayStation 4 has the potential to exceed the profits earned by the current undisputed champion of the console world, the PlayStation 2, which scored record sales all around the world.
Consequently, Sony is now hoping to end the current financial year (ending March, 2015) with a total of 17 million PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 units shifted from their warehouse to users’ welcoming homes.
The only puzzling thing about this is what are the other 50 percent of PlayStation 4 owners thinking, not getting the incredible value for money with the service, even without being interested in multiplayer. It just goes to show how broad a user base gaming has today, if not even free games are an incentive anymore.