PlayStation Plus prices rise for new subscribers on May 20, 2026, less than a month after Microsoft cut Game Pass Ultimate from $29.99 to $22.99. Sony pushed PS+ Essential monthly from $9.99 to $10.99 and the three-month from $24.99 to $27.99. Microsoft moved the other direction and stripped new Call of Duty releases from Game Pass day-one to make the math work. The two largest console subscription services are now executing opposite strategies inside the same quarter. One of these calls is going to look wrong by Q4 earnings.
The Subscriber Math Explains Why the Calls Diverged
Sony has 51.4 million PlayStation Plus subscribers as of early 2026. Microsoft has 34 million Game Pass subscribers based on its last disclosed figure in 2024 and has stopped reporting since. The gap is the entire story. Sony is raising prices on a base 50% larger than its competitor's and growing toward a stated 65 million target by 2028. Asha Sharma, who took over Microsoft Gaming in February 2026, said in an internal memo seen widely in April that Game Pass "has become too expensive for players, so we need a better value equation."
Sony has reversed, structurally.
The October 2025 Microsoft Hike Is the Precedent Sony Is Watching
Microsoft raised Game Pass Ultimate by 50% to $29.99 in October 2025, justifying the move as the cost of putting new Call of Duty games on the service day-one. Six months later, the company partially walked the hike back, cut $7 off Ultimate, and removed future CoD launches. Microsoft Gaming holiday revenue fell 9% to $5.96 billion in the most recent quarter, with Xbox content and services landing below internal projections. The price hike did not produce the margin it was supposed to. Lina Khan, the former FTC chair, publicly accused Microsoft of being "too big to care" after the October move.
Sony watched all of this happen. The decision to raise PS+ regardless.
The Turkey and India Carve-Out Is the Sentence Worth Re-Reading
PS+ existing subscribers are exempt from the price rise everywhere except Turkey and India. Both markets have long been used by VPN-routing subscribers to access PlayStation Plus at significantly lower regional pricing than US or EU rates. Sony has previously enforced against this through region locks and account migration friction. Lifting prices on existing Turkish and Indian subscribers, in contradiction of the company's own "current subscribers protected" framing.
The Q4 Earnings Window Will Settle This
Holiday 2026 is when both calls get graded. Sony enters the GTA 6 launch window in November on a price floor it has just raised, betting that hardware demand carries subscription demand with it. Microsoft enters the same window with a discounted Ultimate tier and no CoD day-one to anchor it. If PS+ subscriber growth slows materially in Q3 reporting, Sony will have moved too early. If Game Pass net additions stay flat or decline after the cut, Microsoft will have proven the problem wasn't price.
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