Player numbers for PS Plus Extra and Premium games dropped by 50% in July 2024, making it a low-performing month.
A new report shows that player numbers for games in the PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium libraries fell by nearly 50% in July 2024 compared to the previous month. This steep decline in player interest makes July one of the lowest performing months for PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium so far in 2024.
The July 2024 lineup for PS Plus Extra consisted of well-regarded titles such as Remnant 2, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion, No More Heroes 3, Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes Complete Edition, and more for a total of nine games. Moreover, the PS Plus Premium lineup added a trio of classics from the PSP and PS2 eras, namely Jeanne d’Arc, Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters, and Summoner. In comparison, the PS Plus Essential selection for July 2024 wasn’t as strong, but it seems this hasn’t been enough to drive a lot of player interest for the more expensive tiers.
According to data sampled from over 3.1 million PlayStation Network accounts, TrueTrophies found that PS Plus Extra and Premium games underwent a 48.67% drop in player numbers in July 2024 when compared to June 2024’s game lineup. The decline in player count is perplexing considering Remnant 2 is the third-most popular game on PS Plus Extra in 2024 so far, and Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion saw a whopping 1171% uptick in active player counts after it joined the service. All said and done, July ranked as the third-weakest month in 2024 for PS Plus Extra and Premium on TrueTrophies’ charts.
PS Plus Extra’s June Bonus Games Skewed Player Counts, But July is Still Behind
However, the report makes note of the fact that the 14 bonus games for PS Plus Extra and Premium in June 2024 did skew the player numbers in its favor. Upon excluding the player counts from the Days of Play bonus titles, though, it seems July 2024 still performed 18.77% behind June 2024. It also seems that July’s critically-acclaimed classics in the PS Plus Premium tier, especially Jeanne d’Arc, didn’t do much to get players excited, even after Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus made headlines in June for being the biggest classic debut on Premium in 2024 so far.
It must be noted that this data isn’t indicative of the wider PlayStation user base, as it’s only sampled from 3.1 million PSN accounts, so Sony may be seeing different metrics behind the scenes. Regardless, one can only hope the gaming giant is taking these statistics into consideration as well, and that the forthcoming announcement for the August 2024 PS Plus lineup reflects that.
