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Number of Home users hits 7 million

Nigh on half of them are based in Europe.

Sony's Peter Edward has revealed 7 million people have now signed up for PlayStation Home.

Edward, who is European director for the service, was speaking at the Develop conference in Brighton. He said the figure includes 3 million people in Europe alone.

Since Home launched seven months ago, European users have downloaded 6 million pieces of merchandise. Yes, said Edward, some of those were free, but make no mistake: "This is a commercial business, it is up and running and it is making money."

According to Edward, "only" 80 per cent of Home users are 18 to 35 year-old males. That might sound like a lot, he said, but think about the typical age and gender of the average console gamer. "Home is slowly broadening the appeal of the console market out to a widening demographic," he added.

Fact fans may also like to know the average time a European user spends on Home in a single session is 56 minutes. "In terms of exposure and people's attention, that is a huge amount of time," said Edward.

It hasn't been easy, of course - "Obviously there have been a lot of trials and tribulations along the way," the exect conceded. However, "Now, we're starting to see a huge amount of content coming into the platform... Content is arriving which we didn't even know was being developed."

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