Pachter: PS Plus needs 2-3 million subscribers for PSN to profit

Sony may see some profit from PlayStation Plus initially, but the company will need 2-3 million subscribers before it sees black from PSN as a whole, Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Patcher has claimed.

Speaking on the latest episode of his Gamestrailers show Pach Attack, the analyst compared the service to Xbox Live, which he also described as a slow starter until new services such as Netflix were introduced.

“Sony is already spending the money on PlayStation Network, so layering on a new group of users paying it for a service will be profitable," said Pachter.

“PlayStation Plus will take a while to get up to the same level as Xbox Live and I think you will see around 1 million subscribers early on, which amounts to around $50 million in profit."

Pachter continued: “What this means is the PlayStation Network as a whole will not become profitable, as I'm guessing it costs Sony about a couple-of-hundred-million a year to maintain. What Sony will be hoping is the new service drives people to download more movies and games and therefore bring in more money.

“I think for Sony to make a profit on the PlayStation Network, it will need at least 2-3 million PlayStation Plus subscribers within the next two years.”

Sony has so far only announced Automatic Updates as an extra service for PlayStation Plus, although there have previously been rumours of Cross Game Chat becoming a feature of the service.

PlayStation Plus was released at the end of June.