Since it was launched back in 2008, Playstation Home has managed to gain over 7 million users worldwide with over 3 million users in Europe alone. Over 80% of users are male, aged between 18 and 35 years old, a lower amount than the 90% expected by Sony.
One particular success within Home is the Red Bull Air Race game which, since its launch 5 months ago has been visited over 2.5 million times and played by 873,136 unique users. According to a third-party media consultancy the game cost around 110,000 euros to develop but has a marketing value of 1.5 million euros.
Other popular events within Home include the Watchman space which clocked up 3.2 million visits in a 3 month period. An exclusive video with director Zack Snyder was viewed by 812,544 unique users which comprised 9.3 million viewing minutes.
Another interesting attraction within the Home platform is the ability to purchase virtual items, with over 6 million items downloaded to date. Selling virtual items is an opportunity to make cash within Home, and this is something expected to increase as Sony releases an in-Home currency to support Pay2Play features.
A recent Star Trek campaign that ran for two weeks resulted in the sale of 450,000 costumes and 250,000 video views.
It’s not all about the revenue however as Peter Edward, director of the Home platform for Sony Computer Entertainment Europe explained, “Home is the starting point for PlayStation 3 online, and that’s something that gamers are going to expect as more games support Game Launch from within Home.”.
Read more over at Gamesutra
