Sony's latest fiscal report was filled with plenty of bright spots, but there was one glaring area where PlayStation fell short. According to the new data, PS Plus is hemorrhaging subscribers, losing more than a million between Q4 2020 and Q1 2021.
The PS Plus subscriber count isn't the only number in decline, with the PlayStation Network as a whole experiencing a drop in active users by nearly five million. Specifically, it dropped to 104 million monthly active users from 109 million – for PS Plus, the numbers are now 46.3 million, down from 47.6 million in Q4 2020.
For now, Sony isn't too concerned about the drop in numbers.
"Last year, the stay-at-home demand was such a significant demand in hindsight," Sony announced, as transcribed by Gamasutra. "Compared to FY19 there is an increase, so we will monitor the situation carefully [...] and make efforts to enhance and upgrade the platform to support this business."
Still, the company is acutely aware of the faltering numbers and understands that it'll need to pay close attention to how they swing over the next few months.
"[104 million] is not a strong figure," Hiroki Totoki, Sony CFO, said. "Of course, it's not a strong number, but are we looking at a declining trend? We don't think so. It's the first quarter, and we are trying to analyze different elements, but there was no conspicuous trend we could capture. [Maybe that will occur] this month or next month -- we'll have to continue watching and do an analysis."
Declining PSN and PS Plus numbers aside, Sony had an incredible July – it nearly outsold all other consoles combined in the UK. The company also claims it has the bandwidth to sell 22 million PS5 units by March of next year.
There have also been rumblings of a subscription service to rival Xbox Game Pass, although specifics are yet to be announced.