Sony Clarifies PSN Registration Stats

See Full Image

A few days ago, the news broke that Sony had matched Microsoft in terms of online subscribers: MS revealed that Xbox Live had 14 million subscribers at E3 this year, and to celebrate the PlayStation 3's birthday last week, Sony issued the same number for the PlayStation Network. However, many questions arose after this report, and we want to get things right, so...

Sony has now clarified with GameSpot UK that the 14 million "active users" does include PSP accounts as well as PS3, just because both include "PlayStation Network services." In other words, the 14 million represents the total number of active Network accounts, and contrary to popular opinion, they're not counting duplicates. So of course, the logical question is, how many users are logging on with their PS3? Well, according to a Sony representative:

"We've seen an increase in unique [PS3] consoles registered for PSN compared to the sell through rate, which means we are seeing more PlayStation 3 owners who didn't previously register, do so lately, based on the new features we've added to PSN, such as Video Store and Trophies."

The statistics do reflect this positive outlook as IDC industry analyst Billy Pidgeon estimates that PSN registration has shot up 160% since January 2008. As for the percentage of consoles that are logged onto the PSN, he figures about half (50%) are, while about 60% of all Xbox 360 consoles are hooked up to Live. Therefore, whichever way you wish to view that 14 million figure, the bottom line is that the Network is growing at a very rapid rate. Plain and simple.

11/21/2008 Ben Dutka

Put this on your webpage or blog:
Email this to a friend
Subscribe to Ben Dutka on Twitter