The market of gaming subscription services has stopped showing steady growth

The growth of the game subscription market has almost stopped, said analyst Matt Piscatella from Circana, a former NPD company that tracks sales of games and consoles in North America.

According to the expert, in April 2023, spending by American users on gaming subscriptions increased by only 2% compared to the same period last year, despite all attempts by platform holders and publishers to make their offers more attractive.

This segment of the market no longer demonstrates noticeable growth. On consoles, manufacturers have already covered the bulk of users interested in subscriptions, Piscatella believes.

This is also indicated by information on the dynamics of the PS Plus subscriber set from Sony's official reports.

"It is very difficult to find new subscribers outside of the console database," the specialist stated.

Recall that the heads of PlayStation and Xbox previously set a course to promote their brands outside of consoles.

Microsoft is making a particularly big bet on the popularization of Xbox Game Pass — it believes that in the future the audience of console games can become billions thanks to the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate cloud service and the ability to stream games directly to phones, televisions or weak PCs.

Interestingly, against the background of a slowdown in the subscription market, users are willing to buy new high-quality games at a price of $ 70.

Piscatella noted that the high-profile premium releases of 2023, including Hogwarts Legacy and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, performed just fine.