The heyday of game subscription services like Xbox Game Pass and PS Plus seems to be over. The growth of the services has almost stopped in the United States, which means that they cannot attract more players than they already have.
Video game analyst Matt Piscatella shared the findings on his Twitter account, citing a report by Circana’s Games Market Dynamics. The report shows that between April 2022 and April 2023, the number of Americans spending money on sports subscription services increased by only two percent. This means that services like Game Pass and PS Plus have now run out of capacity, at least in the US.
On the other hand, Piscatella reports that sales of large stand-alone games are doing very well in 2023, especially in the digital sector. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, which came out last month, on the other hand, should do better in terms of physical sales.
Sony has had around fifty million subscribers to PlayStation Plus for some time, but last year it was able to generate more revenue by introducing more expensive subscription tiers like PlayStation Plus Extra and PlayStation Plus Premium. On the other hand, Microsoft is keeping Game Pass subscriber numbers a secret, so it’s not entirely clear how well it’s doing at this point. By 2022, it is estimated to reach 25 million subscribers.
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