Sony has nearly 21m PlayStation Plus subscribers

Sony has nearly 21m PlayStation Plus subscribers on its books.

In an investor relations report released today, Sony said PlayStation Plus has an impressive 20.8m paid subscribers.

That's across multiple devices - not just on PlayStation 4, which has cracked the 40m install base since its launch at the end of 2013. It's the fastest-selling console in PlayStation history, Sony said. Look at this graph - PS4 is comfortably outpacing the PS2.

Sony said it has over 60m PlayStation active users - so around a third fork out for PS Plus, which costs around £40 a year. That's around £800m coming in from PS Plus subs a year. You'd think they'd spend some of that money making PSN more reliable, wouldn't you?

You need PS Plus to play online multiplayer on PS4, so you can see why so many have it. But each month Sony gives subscribers a few games to download free, too, so most agree PS Plus is worth it.

It all amounts to a huge amount of money rolling into Sony's coffers on a regular basis. In the last financial year, Sony generated over 500 billion yen from "Network Sales" - that's PS Plus subscriptions plus money made whenever someone buys something from the PlayStation Store.

Looking ahead, Sony discussed its strategy for the next financial year. It mentions stuff such as "game + VR", which is a nod to the upcoming launch of PlayStation VR. Sony also mentions its desire to expand the PS VR ecosystem to non-game stuff. Perhaps it'll dabble, like Chris did at E3, in VR porn.

There's also growth hope in PS Vue and "original content" that'll strengthen the PlayStation brand - stuff like the Powers show.

No mention of the PlayStation Neo, though!