Checking in on PlayStation Home

April 9th, 2009

By Christopher Mack

Back in December, we examined Sony’s attempt to catch up with Microsoft and Nintendo in the console wars with its realistic virtual world, PlayStation Home. Since this product involved more than 18 months of development time, people have begged the question: How is Home doing now?

Despite the fact Home received some negative reviews when it first launched, it has garnered a fairly large user base since then. Jack Buser, director of PlayStation Home for the United States, gave an update about the virtual world at the Game Developers Conference.

Buser talked primarily about developer opportunities within Home. For starters, he said Sony would launch at least three promotional spaces a month, providing a new area for players to interact with friends and explore Home more deeply. Buser said that building a strong community will separate Home from competitor products, according to Eurogamer.

“If you look at some of our competition, they really struggle with the idea of community and how to foster a community on their platform,” he says. “Home is the true community for PlayStation 3.”

Reinforcing this statement, he showcased a “good space” within Home, which had around 250,000 visits weekly in the U.S., with 75 percent of users spending more than 10 minutes there.

He also noted that PlayStation Home currently has more than five million worldwide users (2.2 million within the U.S.). Their average playtime within the virtual world is about 40 minutes. While Buser did not disclose how many unique or concurrent users Home has attracted, Sony has invested a lot of time and money into Home. One can only hope it continues to grow.

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3 Responses to “Checking in on PlayStation Home”

David Kaye Says:
April 9th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
These stats are meaningless. The 5m figure is almost certainly registered users, which tells you nothing about actual usage. Anecdotal evidence in the gaming community suggests that the vast majority of people downloaded it, checked it out once and maybe come back occasionally something major is added. Average play time of 40 minute is almost useless – I’m guessing that’s the average length of a session, but without reference to a time period it doesn’t say much.

My guess is that if they had strong, meaningful engagement metrics to report, then they’d be trumpeting them.
Nicholas Lovell Says:
April 9th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
I think that you need to investigate Xi. This is Sony focusing on the need for gameplay, which is great news for Home users, IMO.
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