The recent Insomniac Games hack has revealed that sales of Sony’s first-party exclusives are negatively impacted by PS Plus. Sony continues to strongly oppose the idea of releasing first-party games on subscription services, while Microsoft insists that Xbox Game Pass benefits from first-party game launches.
PS Plus has “big” affect on traditional sales of PlayStation exclusives, Sony says
In a leaked Sony Interactive Entertainment presentation, the company declares that including first-party games on PS Plus has had a “big” effect on “traditional sales.” As an example, the company mentioned that Horizon Forbidden West‘s sales “flat-lined” immediately after being added to PS Plus.
“In year 1, Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West were very comparable,” the presentation reads. “HFW was included into PS Plus at the start of Year 2. HFW saw an enormous influx of PS Plus players, but at the cost of flat-lining the game activations from retail sales.” The damning sales graph illustrating this is hosted on ResetEra. As of April 2023, Horizon Forbidden West has sold more than 8 million copies on PS5 and PS4, whereas Horizon Zero Dawn has sold over 24 million units as of the same date (PC included).
Interestingly, the leak reveals that Insomniac requested Sony to hold off on including Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart in PS Plus until at least 2023. The studio wanted “one more important holiday retail sales cycle” for the game. Yesterday, false reports emerged that Rift Apart made a loss for Sony. However, a leaked Insomniac presentation revealed that the game was, in fact, profitable.
