PlayStation Network Users Matches Xbox LIVE
Sony announced that there are 14 millions users on the PlayStation Network, which matches the number announced for Xbox LIVE at the Tokyo Game Show recently. Granted, that includes multiple PSN accounts on a console. I myself have 4 total (accounts for North America, Europe, Japan, and Asia). But I only buy stuff off the North American store.
Because the PlayStation Network is free. People are more opt to try it out that way, and it’s a excellent selling point. It still needs some work, but it’s a great service for free.
PlayStation Network matches Xbox LIVE user base
Try now - 
November 19th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Hmmm opening up an account for North America, Europe, Japan, and Asia…. That’s genius. That way you have access to everything and have a better chance of getting invites to other offerings. Ok. I’ll do it.
November 19th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
yeah I’ve also got more than 5 accounts on PSN, for each of the various territories. I did that back in 06 as the Canadian store was pretty empty at the time.
A more useful metric would be the number of unique users who have purchased an item at the store, or the number of unique users who have sent a message; I suspect those numbers are quite a bit lower for both PSN and XBOX Live
November 19th, 2008 at 9:16 pm
So if everyone has 4-5 accounts per user then the 14 million number is inflated by that. Which could mean there are actually 3-5 million accounts.
I myself only have 1 account.
November 21st, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Only Sony knows what the number represents – is it primary accounts, and thus effectively machines? Or is it everyone who ever logged into PSN?
Given the way they don’t specify, you can only assume it is the later, since every organisation likes to inflate their numbers as much as possible, without lying (e.g. vista is a success according to em-ballmer, even if many of those ’sales’ were actually XP or replaced with redhat – like mine was).
Being free, even a relatively moderately `hard-core’ user will be quite casual about it. I think on xbox live, people will force themselves to try to get some value out of their subscription, so there’s no argument that xbox live would have to be far more populated – even if the number above represented only primary accounts.