E3 causes PlayStation Home stampede

By Robert Purchese Published 16 June, 2011

Half-a-million flood virtual show floor.

Half-a-million people flocked to PlayStation Home during E3 2011, according to VentureBeat.

Only 46,800 were at the actual E3 show in Los Angeles.

PlayStation Home hosted a virtual E3 space last week, allowing gamers' avatars to digitally stroll around a replicated LA Convention Centre.

Those incredible numbers were recorded days after Home was restored following a headline-dominating PlayStation Network hack and resulting outage.

Buser last week spouted off about "record traffic in Home".

Elated, he added, "We were watching the numbers and we were just so excited. We were just dancing in the streets."

"The numbers are through the roof. I think it speaks to the loyalty of our user base, and to the power of these kinds of platforms."

WipEout-alike Sodium 2 Project Velocity arrives this week on PlayStation Home. It's free and has multiplayer and customisable spaceship-car-things. There's more information about Sodium 2 on the European PlayStation blog.

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 (34) Latest comment 11 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • AcidSnake #1 11 months ago

    But have they remained on Home now that E3 is over?

  • Doctor_What #2 11 months ago

    Nice to hear some actual numbers related to Home. Half a million is pretty damn decent - I bet the queues were easier to handle too!

  • Zephro #3 11 months ago

    "But have they remained on Home now that E3 is over?"

    Betting the answer is no.

  • paulf #4 11 months ago

    I'm still amazed by the fact that home makes money and people go there - good for sony though

  • GamesProgrammer Verified Games Team Programmer, Eutechnyx Ltd. #5 11 months ago

    Ill give Home another look soon the Sodium thing looks good, telling you tho they would increase there average numbers 10 fold or more if they put trophies on these home games.

  • Viz1 #6 11 months ago

    I would use home ...... If they didn't have them annoying loading screens... Every time you move space to space...

  • emhaslam92 #7 11 months ago

    I haven't been on Home since it's first week of release. Is there anything to do now?

  • betrayerofhope #8 11 months ago

    i went there the other day to have a look and man it was packed. i thought it was going to be deserted by there are lots of people in home.

  • PixelPirate #9 11 months ago

    basically, there was something worth using home for so people did. Now there isnt anymore, the numbers are bound to go back down to similar levels as before.

  • influenceuk #10 11 months ago

    Considering PSN has 77 million registered accounts, i'd say half a million is pretty rubbish imho. Not much to get excited about.

    You will probably find Home only has a few million active users, once again not great numbers.

  • DavoTheDiv #11 11 months ago

    Part of me (the selfish side) wishes they'd just let Home die, and use the resource to develp the PS3 firmware more. I feel xmb is looking a little dated now. However, if the majority of PSN users do use Home, good for Sony, but it's not my bag really.

  • LazyDan #12 11 months ago

    Boot up Home.
    Be slightly confused by Home menu
    Pick something
    Loading screen
    Where the fuck am I
    Run round
    Approach game
    "Insert disc to play? Fuck off"
    Run round
    Look at trailer on wall
    Why can't I jump
    See person
    Approach person
    Call up emotes list
    Perform sexy dance ('salsa') for person.
    Chase person around
    Quit room
    Select another room
    Loading screen
    Run around
    Turn PS3 off.

  • Beano #13 11 months ago

    I haven't been on Home since it's first week of release. Is there anything to do now?"

    Yes a lot actually... but interesting stuff which is worth the time?... not really.

  • TeeHee #14 11 months ago

    MUFASA, NOOOOOOO!!!

  • Spielo #15 11 months ago

    You didn't mention the Scribble Shooter game that's in the E3 space, it's pretty charming!

  • coolbritannia #16 11 months ago

    AcidSnake +1

  • Markusdragon #17 11 months ago

    This was a thing? It would have been nice to have been informed last week...

  • Stratix #18 11 months ago

    I don't own a PS3 myself, but this seems like a fantastic idea on their part.

  • TonyHarrison #19 11 months ago

    I'm astonished that half a million people still have Home on their PS3...

  • king26 #20 11 months ago

    PS3 is a great console with lots of great things such as a ton of fantastic exclusives, VidZone, a great online service (free) and BluRay...Home does not fall into the list of things that's great about PS3 imo.

  • RodHull #21 11 months ago

    This is the kind of thing that Home can do quite well. There's a real community feel in the virtual E3. However the quality of videos and such is poor compare to the HD that you find on the likes of Gametrailers, YouTube and even Xbox Live. If Sony can sort out the tech behind that then they'll be onto a real winner.

  • Doctor_What #22 11 months ago

    influenceuk: 'a few million active users' is a bloody awesome figure. Many big games sell around 5m copies and a mid-sized hit will reach between 1-2 million. The thing is that most of those people will have stopped playing the game three months after release. If Sony have got it so that a few million people are going to Home semi-regularly, even over a moderate space of time, then they've achieved something significant.

    I'm like many on here - it doesn't really hold any appeal for me - but that doesn't mean that this has been the failure it looked like it would be in the months after the release.

  • Acrid #23 11 months ago

    @TonyHarrison
    I'm astonished that half a million people still have Home on their PS3...

    I wasn't aware you could remove it?

  • GamerForYears #24 11 months ago

    One thing about Home - it works a darn site better if you have a fast broadband connevtion. When it first came out, I only had around 2 meg so it took ages to download anything. More recently I've had around 15 meg so at least if I want to look at anything it doesn't take forever to arrive. Saying that I haven't been back in a while - maybe it's time to have another poke around. I wonder if they've updated the cinema so the trailers can be watched full screen without the silly borders.

    I still don't get the dancing though :-)

  • chessboxer #25 11 months ago

    I wonder how many people will still maintain that Home is a bag of shite but Avatar Kinect is the greatest thing since sliced bread when it launches.

  • ZuluHero #26 11 months ago

    Why go to the real thing when you can stay at Home? ;)

  • riseer #27 11 months ago

    I hardly even log on Home but i won't call it useless or anything like that.Sony makes money from it that's all they want from it.

  • riseer #28 11 months ago

    I hardly even log on Home but i won't call it useless or anything like that.Sony makes money from it that's all they want from it.

  • riseer #29 11 months ago

    I hardly even log on Home but i won't call it useless or anything like that.Sony makes money from it that's all they want from it.

  • riseer #30 11 months ago

    I hardly even log on Home but i won't call it useless or anything like that.Sony makes money from it that's all they want from it.

  • influenceuk #31 11 months ago

    @Doctor_What, i never said it was a failure.However your comments are slightly flawed. Quoting sales figures and comparing a FREE built in application to a game title that costs money does not really work. It is 2 completely different things.

    The fact remains that Sony has 77 million potential users of Home, yet only 1/2 a million do use it!! I do agree Sony has done well in creating a virtual space for people to go and talk about games, and take part in events. It's a wicked concept, however the time spent could have been put into other things on the PSN, and improving features etc.

    Oh and that "few million" statement was just my guesstimate, i am not sure on the actual active user numbers. :)

  • KongRudi #32 11 months ago

    Home is OK. If you have new games or a backlog, you'll offcourse have a better time by going through those.

    The stream of the Sony-press-conference in the room I where in, lagged alot, it where a choppy mess. Wixch chased me over to IGN-stream. Havn't discovered video-lag in Home before tough, but showed that they would need more servers/bandwith if they are going to continue this.

    It's a great idea tough, would be cool if we could get more coverage from various third-party comunity-days, i.e. Level 5, and Sega and Capcom-day, and similar. Especially for us living far from where those things usually happens. :)

  • Ashcroft #33 11 months ago

    I'm glad Sony makes money from Home, the idiots using it deserve to be fleeced for non-existent furniture.

    Start charging by the hour, Sony. They'll probably pay if you call if cyber-rent or something.

  • BuddyChrist #34 11 months ago

    .... Some sort of coincidence. A phenomena in which half a million people accidentally hit Home instead of store, then decide to "give it a chance" before getting bored with attempting to communicate through the controller, and realising that making the house look nice would take way too much effort for no apparent reason.