PlayStation Home played by 17 million

By Robert Purchese Published 10 December, 2010

Sony compares now and then.

A whopping 17 million people have walked the virtual streets of PlayStation Home, Sony has announced.

Mind you, it's free - perhaps the real story is that the remaining 22.2 million people with a PS3 haven't.

The numbers come on this, PlayStation Home's second birthday. A comparison chart between now and then, 2008 - launch of the open beta - has been posted on the US PlayStation Blog.

Then, Home had 0.2 million users; now, 17 million. Then, there were nine games to play; now, 236 games. Then, 114 virtual items; now, 7000. Then, 25 events; now, 600.

In January 2009, Sony announced that 10 million gamers inhabited PlayStation Home. How exactly this is measured - client downloads, avatars created - isn't mentioned.

Today, PlayStation Home is a fundamentally different place to the world and service Phil Harrison announced at the Game Developers Conference in early 2007. What was once to become an elaborate extrapolation of Achievements on Xbox Live has spiralled into an enormous world - a game in its own right.

Take Novus Prime as an example: it's a multiplayer space shooter where people can defend a space station, customise ships and partake in huge battles. Or there's the carnival area of Midway 2, where hundreds of games await your attention.

To that end, Sony plans much more of the same for 2011.

Conspiracy, available in January and made by Jet Set Games, will be a 3D multiplayer game that involves stealing from the enemy. And then in spring, PlayStation Home veteran Outso will deliver Sodium 2, with more customisable jet racers, faster speeds and louder songs.

Incidentally, PlayStation Home is still considered by Sony to be in beta.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (21) Latest comment 1 year ago

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  • Ryze #1 1 year ago

    17 million have at one time clicked on the Home icon accidently on the way to the PSN store, then pressed guide and quit out ASAP!

  • richarddavies #2 1 year ago

    I got to the create an avatar bit then couldn't be arsed and turne it off again. I really need to give it a proper go.

  • jonsaan #3 1 year ago

    'A whopping 17 million people have walked the virtual streets of PlayStation Home, Sony has announced.'

    If only you could just walk the streets. It's more like walk. Load an area. Walk. Load another area. Dance a bit. Get bored. Walk. Load another area. Load a mini game. Switch it off.

  • drxym #4 1 year ago

    Of those 17 million how many ever came back? Of those who came back how many would classify as regular visitors?

    My expectation is that the number of regulars is small with the mass being occasional visitors. I also expect that if PS Home actually implemented features that gamers wanted, or if PS Home were properly integrated into XMB, or if it addressed all the stupid annoyances peppered through the UI that the number of regulars would be 2-4x as many as it is now.

    At the end of the day Home is advertising and DLC driven. So it makes no sense to me at all that the service is so positively hostile to the sort of people who might want to use it. This is all money slipped through Sony's fingers.

  • slippysloppy #5 1 year ago

    17m loaded it up realised it was dull and pointless, and only ever to be used by the dull and pointless, and never ever loaded it up again.

  • natashaspice #6 1 year ago

    They should have turn home into a free rpg game e.g WoW

  • Arwin #7 1 year ago

    It should have launched the way it is now so we wouldn't have so many comments from people who tried it before stating its useless, when it no longer is.

    Though that said, requiring all online games including PSN titles to include game-launching from and maintaining its new voice chat enabled parties would do a lot to make this a must-have.

  • slickster #8 1 year ago

    yes and im one of the proud owner of home. the winter wonderland is great for christmas. :o)

  • Ultrasoundwave #9 1 year ago

    I've been in Home once, about it year ago. It actually scared me a little bit to see people sitting around chatting in there, playing pool and hanging out with each other!
    Is this the future of peoples social lives?, I fucking well hope not!

  • Dagdriver #10 1 year ago

    Happy PS3 owner, been at Playstation Home once when I first got it (the PS3), never returned.
    Any reason to try it again?

  • Pedrolot #11 1 year ago

    I dont mind it. The pool games pretty addictive!

  • DarkSeptember #12 1 year ago

    For some reason i do find myself wandering around Home every now and again.Some of the areas are pretty cool (Star Wars) , other areas however are complete arse :(

  • captain_Carl #13 1 year ago

    Tons of reasons. Check out the awesome Christmas spaces :)

  • pinchofsalt #14 1 year ago

    Sodium is pretty smart.

  • Billy_Sastard #15 1 year ago

    I was invited into the closed beta before it opened for everyone, it's nice to check back now and again to see the changes. XI was fun and kept me hooked for weeks, spoilt sometimes by the cheats and people blurting out the answers, the Buzz space is ace as are a few others. I don't understand the hate, it's free, it's fun and it has it's charms.

    It's let down most of the time because of non events, perverts and racists. There's plenty to explore and interesting people to talk to all over the world. I can understand peoples dis-heartedness with no given goals in most spaces, the thing is, it's a social experience, not a video game in a real sense.

    If Trophies where integrated I bet people would flock in their masses. :)

    Pool Ace - Bronze trophy: You won a game of pool.
    Pin Monkey - Bronze trophy: you won a game of bowling.

    Come on Sony integrate Trophies, you know it makes sense.

  • Sunyavadin #16 1 year ago

    *awaits MS announcing "XBox dashboard played by 44 million"...*

  • knightmt #17 1 year ago

    Played. Everytime I have looked at it I have had to download some update or other, maybe if my broadband was faster.

  • GamesConnoisseur #18 1 year ago

    I updated Home and downloaded all the spaces, and wasted about an hour of really trying to like the feature.... sorry still no sale even though its free!

    Goody for those who really takes to it, but just so wasted on me.

    Biggest gripes is the loadings and non instanteousness of everything, too much to ask, but for the social home and game/features launching to REALLY works and take off, that what required I believe. So have to wait till PS4 as no way this will be realised properly this gen.

  • DrStrangelove #19 1 year ago

    Am I counted as a player too? I played it 5 minutes and won't ever touch it again.

  • goatjugsoup #20 1 year ago

    well i tried it once since i had played a game (cant remember which one) and said it unlocked stuff for ps home, when i found out what it was i realised i had no interest in it.
    thing i don't get is 1. its not that interesting (not likely to attract people to the system because of it) 2. its free (what exactly are sony getting from this other then mwahaha we brainwashed some people into actually playing it)

  • zedzee #21 1 year ago

    "PlayStation Home is still considered by Sony to be in beta."

    That's NOT true. You, yourselves, EG, released a news item back in 2008, saying that sony had "sneakily" released Home and it was not LIVE, rather than in BETA.