Number of PlayStation Now members has doubled after price cut and the arrival of top games – Gaming – News

Sony’s PlayStation Now gaming subscription has 2.2 million paying subscribers. Six months ago, there were about 1 million. The number of subscribers has grown much faster since Sony lowered the price at the end of last year blockbusters added.

Between the end of October 2019 and the end of April 2020, 1.2 million paying subscribers were added, or an average of 200,000 per month. In the period between the end of March 2019 and October that same year, the number of subscribers grew by 300,000, or about 43,000 per month. Sony shares the numbers in a presentation about the company’s strategy.

The strong growth coincides with changes that Sony made to its subscription service for games. In October last year, the Japanese group lowered the price from 15 euros to 10 euros per month and blockbusters have been added ever since. Sony uses a rotation method for this. Top games will remain available through the service for three months.

The total number of subscribers to PlayStation Now, at 2.2 million, is considerably lower than the 10 million subscribers that Microsoft has for his Game Pass subscription. However, Microsoft regularly stunts with prices, with new customers getting three months of access for one euro, for example. It is not known how many subscribers pay full price.

PlayStation Now is available for the PlayStation 4 and PC. With the PC version, only the games that can be played via streaming are available. In this way, exclusive Sony games can also be played on the PC. The top titles can be downloaded on the PlayStation 4 and can then be played locally. Older games work via streaming.

In the presentation, Sony also reports that the use of the Remote Play function is increasing significantly. In December 2019, the number of monthly active users was 2.5 times greater than a year earlier. The feature allows PlayStation owners to stream games from their console to a PC or smartphone. Sony also emphasized the speed of the SSD in the PlayStation 5. According to the manufacturer, the new console can process data a hundred times faster than the PS4.

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