PlayStation Now doubles subscribers, Playstation Plus boosted by COVID-19 lockdown orders

Sony has joined the list of companies reporting increased engagement during the COVID-19 social distancing measures. Sony has reported that their other subscription service, Playstation Now, which has reached 2.2 million subscribers, doubling its audience when compared to last year. The service had over one million subscribers at the end of March 2019, rising to 2.2 million by the end of April 2020. (via GI.biz)

However, this figure still falls short of Microsoft’s Game Pass subscriptions, which now sits at over 10 million. Still, the boost in both Playstation and Microsoft subscriptions show that the boost in engagement caused by the COVID-19 lockdowns have reached  subscription services.

Additionally, Sony reports that their subscriber numbers for Playstation Plus rose by 2.7 million in the first three months of 2020. That adds up a total subscription count of 41.5 million.

This comes via Sony CEO and president Kenichiro Yoshida, who revealed the subscription boost at a corporate strategy meeting.

“At a time when people are voluntarily not going outside, demand for digital entertainment such as games is increasing globally,” said Yoshida. “In this environment, PlayStation users have increased significantly.”

Playstation Now was first released in North America in 2014, rolling out to the rest of the world in the following year. Initially a streaming-only platform, Sony added the ability a download functionality to play offline in 2018.