Although PlayStation 3 is still third in worldwide sales, behind the Xbox 360 by about 5-million units, the PS3 community services now have as many online gamers as Xbox 360 says Sony. Sony posted on their blog saying, “with 14 million active accounts and 273 million pieces of content downloaded, we know that you’re thirsting for this digital entertainment.”
Although US sales of the 360 are killing the PS3, the community membership does give gamers a reason to get online with the PS3. Nobody wants to buy into a console that has very few active online games or an easy way to find friends (*cough* Wii). Having 14-million users helps them bridge the sales gap by building gamer confidence. Social networking is the new term; gamers want to socialize with each other online and with their consoles.
Microsoft recently announced their 14-million subscriber base and continue to update folks when they hit big milestones. The main difference, LIVE is a subscription system — those 14-million gamers are also paying for the service (we’re not sure if silver memberships count in that figure) and this means income for Microsoft while Sony does their service for free.
Although Microsoft is making money on their service, no doubt Sony will bypass their total membership because it has no cost barriers to play. The biggest cost barrier to get on Sony’s network is the PS3 itself and many gamers hold out for price drops which aren’t coming anytime soon (so says Sony). However, building a larger community on a free network allows Sony to siphon gamers to buy downloadable content, games, music, movies and all the goodies that go with these services.
It seems a better idea to triple your audience with a free service knowing a large amount of “hardcore gamers” attach themselves to the easy to buy content on said service. So, is it better to make US $50.00 a year on half the population or give triple that population an opportunity to spend more money on content?
“Thanks to all of you, PS3’s momentum is stronger than ever. There are nearly 17 million PS3 systems around the world, and in the United States, PS3 hardware sales are up nearly 100 percent from where we were at this time last year. Software sales have tripled from a year ago. Yes, we’re proud about everything we’ve accomplished, and we’re even more psyched about where we’re going with our holiday software lineup” (playstation.com)
Eventually gamers may have access to Sony’s Home project, which could raise the community figures and give Xbox 360 something less to brag about. Although, we’re sure Sony would rather be boasting “number one” console again, at least they’ve finally got a win on their side because 14-million users is only the beginning for them.
Plus, it’s hard to argue free.
Gamers around the world have noticed a large trend in the video game industry in the last 15 years, massive growth with massive projects and unbelievable costs, goals and sales. We’ve seen the impossible become achievable in epic projects like World of Warcraft and huge sales figures from Halo 3 but we’ve also seen game titles fall down in a burning wreck.
No Paul again, you know the drill.
Lately I’ve been ignoring all these articles just spewing out rumors day after day, hoping one of them will be right. First, IGN comes out with “Report: BOTH New Xbox and PS4 Will Be Shown At E3”. The very next day they wrote that an analyst said none of the consoles will be shown. And now yesterday, they came out with “Microsoft or Sony To Quit Console Race?”. Seriously guys, stop guessing and just wait for E3 for goodness sake.
And also I hate when they say an “analyst” says so. Oh, it must be true then because this guy gets paid to “analyze”.
@Rumor: Next Xbox tablet-based?: Even though the Wii-U will be sort of tablet-based, I think that Microsoft wouldn’t be able to pull it off and will just end up sucking.
hey guys… hope you can read this before recording the 247th!
@ps4 and 720: I hope they will be announced at this next e3 but i am ready for dissapointment. and yes, if the ps4 do not have some awesome co-funtionality with the vita, sony will be effectivelly killing the it
@diablo auction houses: not only south coreia: you guys talked about south coreia and russia, but you did forget about the prisoners in china gold farming in WoW who are obligated to do it (a few months old podcast). sad stuff
@SOPA: i am a brasilian gamer who has warned all american friends to help not passing this bill project because it will affect not only US but all the world. i like the machinima channel on youtube. SOPA would kill them
@before last week’s QOTW: my only handheld console is my trusty dark DS lite and i play on it since it lunched and still love it!!! SO SHINNY
my most played game of 2011 was CoD MW2 and BF3. i know.. the controversy…
the most surprisingly fun game was terraria most preciselly after patch 1.1.
most dissapointing is Black ops (not even 100h of gametime according to steam)
LOVE YOU GUYS, KEEP IT UP!!!
I’ve heard happier versions of Jonah before.
@Gaming Flashback:
Ha ha ha 🙂
The game was mentioned before, but Jordan made this particular flashback entertaining. The other 9 games? Please make a list.
@Fallout MMO rights belong to Bethesda as Interplay settles
Well, I guess Interplay got what it aimed to get. Jonah, it’s not the ‘wrong people won’. When you sell your IP, you won’t be able to make games on it. They should have known that before selling out to Bethesda.
Yes, they had some provisions in the contract allowing them to use the name for an MMO. That’s just not enough though. Interplay should have known better.
@ Next Xbox tablet-based?
No. They want to use PC-like hardware, so that they don’t have to worry too much about software. Plus, the more components (tablet, base station etc etc) the more expensive. So, no.
They will make it more slim, I suppose. Heck, even add a touch screen front panel. But that’s it.
@Diablo III release held due to South Korea (from GameFront)
Erm … yeah, I guess it a bit more difficult to foresee all legal difficulties, especially when you need to keep an eye on all the countries you want to ship …
@QOTW – hardware specs, as asked by your reader:
My ‘modern’ machine is a single core Sempron 3000+, 1.5 GB RAM, ATI Radeon 4650. 🙂 Pretty ancient.