Sony has said there are 17 million registered PlayStation Network accounts, which puts them almost even with Microsoft, who says there are about the same number of Xbox Live accounts. But there's skepticism on both sides for a variety of reasons; anyone can spin numbers to get the desired effect, right?
According to the MTV Multiplayer blog, Sony has now clarified their comments. The thing is, one has to read this with the understanding that both PSN and Live accounts can be registered online without the use of a console; in fact, Sony needs your PSN ID if you wish to participate in the official Sony forums. There's also no way of telling which accounts are more "active" than others, or how much time everyone spends online. But here's the statistic explanation from a Sony representative:
"The PSN numbers (17M and 2.1M) include people who have created accounts on PS3, the Web site and PSP. Note that since the implementation of single sign-on, PSN ID and PlayStation Underground IDs (which were often created at the same time when first making a PSN ID) were automatically merged and rolled over. Additionally, since PSN is a free online gaming service, some households create multiple IDs so that a father can keep a separate list of friends, trophies and stats from that of his daughter for example."
It's honest and forthright, but we have to add that even though the PSN is free and Live isn't, this doesn't stop people from having multiple accounts for the latter. We know of people who have created account after account in the past, just to keep using that first free month of Gold membership perks. Thing is, when it comes to statistics like these, it's just tough to be accurate. Even so, the PSN numbers after only a little over two years are pretty darn impressive.
I don't keep multiple accounts, but some of my friends have 3-4 just for themselves.
I only have multiple accounts for the different regions.
Same US Japan and UK
Same here
Guess what.. SAME HERE!
I have my one account
PSN ID:Tron_04
I have two accounts for myself on my machine one for Japan and one for North America. My fiancé has one account both her brothers each have an account on my machine. I have one Live account and so does my fiancé.
I have one account for myself and my brother has one on my console. M$ live account has been terminated due to another RROD.
LOL!!
I set up a Jap account so i could get the Haze demo earlier. Biggest waste of time ever.
lol
yes that was
I've got 7 accounts ??
2 PS3 accounts and 1 XBL account
I only have 1 psn account.
PSN will be number one in online eventually, I still dont get live pay and play when you get free online just pay for DLC and games which is fair enough, but free online is PRICELESS! instead of 50 dollars extra, or pay a month, or some garbadge!
I count for just one of those 17 million…
PSN ID: "Arvis_Jaggamar"
-Arvis
in the first two months i've had my ps3 i only had one account (PSN ID: faraga), but then gta iv came out and my ps3 said i wasnt old enough to play it online, so i had to make another account saying i was much older (PSN ID: faraga1) in order to play online on gta iv
but both are European as far is i know
Last edited by faraga on 1/15/2009 1:43:55 PM
1 ID 4 the King: Jayda_T
one id, METALSPLINTER. you guys with all three regions accounts, all i have to do to do the same is create a new account and say im in eu or japan right? it sounds like a good idea, like getting 3 psn stores. ive thought about it but just aint looked into it.
Last edited by MetalHead09 on 1/15/2009 3:10:22 PM
MetalHead, its totally worth it. The other stores may offer stuff earlier than the one that you have, or may have different stuff all together.
i do have differnt accounts for different regions just because different regions get demos earlier than other regions
i have 0 accounts:) lol
I think any analyst would agree the future of online gaming is going to be of the free sort.
I always wondered about that number. Good they clarified.
I have Japan and US account.
I have Japan, US and Hong Kong account for my PS3. And I don't even live in any of those countries.=)
I have mutliple accounts on PSN to access the PSN stores from different regions. I haven't tried using the one free month gold membersip on different accounts but you can imagine if 10 thousand 360 owners around the world had created multiple accounts to use the one free gold live subsciption, and they did this for a year. That's 120,000 live accounts created. Do you think there's more or less than 10,000 360 owners that do this?