On Sony’s most recent financial results call, Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai reported really good adoption numbers for their premium Playstation Plus subscription service. While he didn’t get specific he did say that more than half of the Playstation 4’s 4.2 million owners have joined the $50 per year annual subscription program.

Sony requires gamers who want to play multi-player network games to have a premium subscription. The Playstation Plus membership also gives members access to free games and reduced rate games for PS4, PS3 and PS Vita as well.

Playstation Plus is different than their Playstation Network membership which is free to join and gives players avatars and a place to store their scores and network with other PSN members. A PSN account is also required for anyone who wants to buy games and download them to their PS4, PS3 or PS Vita consoles.

Sony corporate has already sold their Vaio PC division and has plans to end their e-reader service in March of this year. They are still full speed ahead with gaming. Playstation 4 seems to have clearly one the Xbox One vs Playstation 4 battle although both systems are very popular. Of course console systems are not high profit margin items, most of the money in the console business is in games and accessories.

With all this in mind, Sony expects to report a net loss of $1 billion dollars when they close out their fiscal year in March.

Source: Gamespot