Registered PSN Accounts Exceed 20 Million Worldwide

[Shin-Ra]

Remarkable Milestone Achieved in Only 2 Years and 3 Months Since Its Launch on November 11, 2006

Tokyo, February 25, 2008 – Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI) today announced that the cumulative number of registered accounts on PlayStation®Network worldwide has exceeded 20 million as of February 20, 2009. The registered accounts on PlayStation Network reached 5million in 1 year and 2 months, 10 million in 1 year and 8 months, and exceeded 20 million in only 2 years and 3 months from the service launch on November 11, 2006¹. The number of users connected to PlayStation Network is ever growing, thus successfully building a robust network business platform.

PlayStation Network is a free to access network service for PLAYSTATION®3 (PS3®) computer entertainment system and PSP® (PlayStation®Portable) handheld entertainment system, that has more than 70 million sell-in units² around the world both platforms combined. Directly accessible from PS3, PSP or PC, users are able to enjoy a broad range of on-line content and services, including on-line gaming, video chat and text messaging with other PS3 users on-line, as well as many games and video content downloadable from PlayStation®Store. Since its launch, PlayStation Network has expanded its services to over 55 countries and regions around the globe, gaining strong support from users for its breadth of entertainment content available for both PS3 and PSP systems in addition to its free to use basic features and services.

To offer more fun and excitement to users, PlayStation Network is continually enhancing gaming experience through online game features such as online battle and team play, as well as adding more and more downloadable game items. More than 600 titles incorporated with online features have been released for the PS3 system worldwide, including Resistance: Fall of Man™, Gran Turismo™ 5 Prologue and LittleBigPlanet™ from SCE.

PlayStation Store offers more than 14,500 diverse digital content, ranging from exclusive on-line games, downloadable version of UMD™ titles, game demos and items, and titles from “Game Archive,” through which legendary and popular titles from the original PlayStation are made playable on PS3 and PSP, to more than 5,900 movies and TV episodes that are available through Video Delivery Service³ that started in the United States in July 2008. To date, more than 380 million pieces of content⁴ have been downloaded, with total sales exceeding 180 million US dollars⁵, and the business scale is rapidly expanding.

PlayStation®Home launched its service in December 2008 and in less than 2 months, the number of users has exceeded 4 million. Within the ground-breaking 3D environment, users are able to meet, share gaming experiences, and enjoy communication with each other. Collaborative initiatives with various game titles and franchises are underway to offer more new fun on games in the world of PlayStation Home as it evolve over time, adding new spaces, features and functions to create a living, growing platform for the PlayStation community

Additionally, the number of users enjoying Life with PlayStation® has now exceeded 2.6 million⁶. Life with PlayStation offers users a new way to obtain information on a TV monitor in the living room by connecting it to the network via PS3. With “time” and “place” as keywords, Life with PlayStation will add more channels to enjoy content on the internet and broaden the world of entertainment beyond the realms of games that is made possible through connecting PS3’s vast computational power to the network.

SCE, along with content providers and users will continue to further expand the entertainment experiences with PS3, PSP and PlayStation Network to create a new world of computer entertainment.

¹ Launched in Japan on November 11, 2006.
² PS3: 21.3 million units as of December 2008, PSP: 50 million units as of January 2009.
³ Launched in July 2008. As of February 2009, over 1,400 movies and 4,400 TV episodes are available for download.
⁴ Includes free of charge content (downloadable demos and promotion videos).
⁵ As of February 2009.
⁶ As of February 2009.

[Rike255]

Lots of news from SCE lately. Seems like just yesterday they announced 14 million or whatever it was PSN accounts. A great milestone, I'd like to know what the numbers are broken up (PS3 vs. PSP vs. PC numbers) although I know that'll never happen.

[saprano]

I'd say ps3 has the most of that number obviously. psp, pc are probably a little over a million or 2. but who know's.

[Uniquely]

I wonder how may accounts are duplicates from where people set up accounts from other regions to get region exclusive downloads?

[saprano]

Does sony count each user?(why does this always come up)

[Uniquely]

Originally Posted by saprano

Does sony count each user?(why does this always come up)

I think each account is counted as a user; for instance, I am the only person who uses my PS3, but I have an American account and a UK account on my PS3, each with a separate user name. They would have no way of knowing that each account name is actually only used by one user.

[Marine Mike]

Originally Posted by robinandtami

I wonder how may accounts are duplicates from where people set up accounts from other regions to get region exclusive downloads?

It also states:

PS3: 21.3 million units as of December 2008

Therefore not everyone with a PS3 creates a PSN account and it obviously didn't count them as well.

[ThePhantomOak]

I have 5

[Hedchekr]

They have to be counting the duplicates, and that number has to be pretty high, I would almost cut that number (21.3 million) in half.

Originally Posted by ThePhantomOak

I have 5

I have four US, UK, JPN, and CHN am I missing one or do you have a duplicate.

[AikonEnt]

I'd like to know how many US people created a UK account just to get the KZ2 demo.

[Hedchekr]

Originally Posted by AikonEnt

I'd like to know how many US people created a UK account just to get the KZ2 demo.

I know at least a handful from this site alone were asking instructions on how to do so, I bet the nimber is very high.

[saprano]

I thought it was said that sony counts each ps3 master accounts, not each user on one system. ether way, both sides do it. people make double accounts on xbl also, and MS counts members from the first xbox. (xbl started in 2002)

[Hedchekr]

Originally Posted by saprano

I thought it was said that sony counts each ps3 master accounts, not each user on one system. ether way, both sides do it. people make double accounts on xbl also, and MS counts members from the first xbox. (xbl started in 2002)

I don't think they can count master accounts, I had to fill out four different PSN "applications" thats four different accounts none of which is a master over the others.

Its totally different with XBL, they count gold accounts not silver accounts which you automaticly get. All the people I know don't have multiple accounts, I don't really see a benifit of having multipules on the 360.

[Shin-Ra]

Dream on if you think Microsoft has 18M+ paying Gold members. There's a LIVE equivalent for every non-PS3 method of creating a PSN account, plus those alternative methods or incentives (like LIVE account only forum sign-in) have been around for much longer. There's an additional incentive to making new LIVE accounts in free 1/3-month Gold cards given out with games and other promotions that can only be used when signing up a new account.

[air_max]

i have 5 accounts

3 US accounts, 1 UK account, 1 JP account that ive never used

[Hedchekr]

Originally Posted by Shin-Ra

Dream on if you think Microsoft has 18M+ paying Gold members. There's a LIVE equivalent for every non-PS3 method of creating a PSN account, plus those alternative methods or incentives (like LIVE account only forum sign-in) have been around for much longer. There's an additional incentive to making new LIVE accounts in free 1/3-month Gold cards given out with games and other promotions that can only be used when signing up a new account.

I did forget about the computer related accounts. I don't think Microsoft has that many the same as I know Sony doesn't have 21.3 million real accounts, both numbers are padded, mainly I was replying to Saprano on multiple XBL account which I don't see a benifit for as you would lose your gamerscore, and your not going to gain access into other stores per se. I don't see either company having those actual numbers.

[Shin-Ra]

I have Japanese and American XBL accounts for store access just like I do on PSN.

[AikonEnt]

When I occasionally turn on my 360 (doesn't happen very often, last time was just to look at the Mii rip-off) there are people on my friends list that haven't been on for years, I bet those are still counted by M$.

[Hedchekr]

Originally Posted by Shin-Ra

I have Japanese and American XBL accounts for store access just like I do on PSN.

I thought they put a stop to the ability to do that, and if they didn't how do you do that?

[Rike255]

In the last report of the numbers, Sony said that they counted ALL ACTIVE ACCOUNTS, meaning that duplicates would be counted, but only if they fell into the realm of "active" (as set by some sort of date, ie must have logged in in the past 3 months or something).

One should also remember that the general population doesn't make duplicate accounts nor do they even know about the benefits of doing that. Only people like us who are up on this sort of thing do that (and we're in the VAST minority).

If I were to make a guess, I'd say approximately 14 million PS3 owners have a PSN account tied to their PS3. This is a total guess, but I'd be very surprised if it was much higher then this (XBOX Live memberships is only abouf half of the owners if I remember correctly).