PlayStation Network members top 20m
Xbox Live lagging behind
Sony has announced that over 20m accounts have been registered with the PlayStation Network since the free online service launched back in late 2006.
The network’s subscriber figures compare to global PS3 sales of 21.3m units – as of December 2008 – and 50m PlayStation Portables (PSP) sales, as of last month.
That may sound like a pretty low attachment rate for Sony’s PlayStation Network, which is free to access for PS3 and PSP users. But it’s worth remembering that not all gamers care about getting their consoles online, while some may be prevented from doing so by, say, an awkward internet set-up.
By contrast, Microsoft’s Xbox Live service has been going since 2002 and – according to a Microsoft spokesman today – had 17m subscribed users worldwide as of January. Microsoft does, of course, charge gamers for using Xbox Live.
Sony also announced that PlayStation Home – a community-focused subset of the PlayStation Network – was launched in December 2008 and now has over 4m global members. ®
COMMENTS
PSN numbers are deceiving
Almost everyone I know who has a PS3 has at least 2-3 accounts, I guess that is because living in a PAL PSN store region, most of us have to source more up-to-date content from foreign shores. The only way to do that - to create multiple accounts for stores from different regions.
For myself, I have 3 accounts, one for the PAL store, one for the US store, and one for the Asia store (singapore). I buy mostly cheaper imports, and some of these imports require download content from specific PSN stores. I used to use entropay, but since it stopped working, I've been buying PSN cards from gaminglue (they have the singapore cards available at times).
I guess Sony is not going to crack down on users who enter fake information, as they need big numbers for advertising purposes.
only 9m online Xbox accounts...
Leaked Microsoft report shows 50% of XboxLive accounts are the free cheapskate silver accounts, with no online play..
20m online PS3 accounts.
8m online 360 accounts...
http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/archives/161658.asp
oh dear... Looks like Microsofts lies and deception has backfired yet again...
Online Play with XBL Silver
Err... but you can't actually play games online with Xbox Live Silver (at least not to the best of my knowledge) it allows interactive play within a game etc.... so it's sort of like what you get with a PS3.
I'll always go for quality not quantity thanks....
Rubbish
Re: xbot facts
There's no shortage of xbot fulls, it seems, who conjure 'facts' out of thin air, for their own manipulations. Or the ' I'm guessing' brigade who do all their guessing wearing their M$ shades.
Like a bunch of schoolgirl playground gossips.
What's the big deal?
Is it really that much of an issue, that Sony are claiming 20 million users on their network? Even if it is PR spin, Microsoft do exactly the same with their products. I honestly can't see why people are getting wound up about this.
