The popular PlayStation Home virtual world has reached 12 million users, says PS Home director jack Buser.
Noting the figures at the Game Developers Conference, Buser says Home users have doubled since June 2009, and jumped 20 percent since December.
85 percent of users that created an avatar on their first visit returned for a second visit and Buser says average users spend “hours” at a time in the virtual world.
“You’re going to see us really embrace this idea of total game integration,” adds Buser of future plans for Home. “It’s an incredibly important part of [Sony's] strategy.”
Titles will be given dedicated Home space, as well as bonus mini-games.
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Sony has launched their highly-anticipated motion controller, the PlayStation Move, a system that should rival the Wii and Microsoft’s upcoming Natal motion system.
Says Peter Dille, senior vice president of marketing for Sony Computer Entertainment: “The migration path from the Wii household to the PlayStation 3 household is a pretty natural path, partly because of the experience that you can get on the PlayStation Move but also because of the content that we find on PlayStation 3.”
As viewed in the demo video, the Move is used in conjunction with the PlayStation Eye camera and allows for real-time tracking of the player’s body movements. As for accuracy?
“Nothing has ever been this precise,” say Shuhei Yoshida, president of Sony Computer Electronics Worldwide Studios.
Standalone prices were not revealed but Dille says that a “starter bundle” including a game, the PS Eye and the Move will retail for under $100.
Big-time publishers such as Activision, EA and Square Enix are already creating games for use with the Move, among 36 developers that have already signed on.
Vids via Engadget:
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An analytics firm, the Strategy Analytics Connected Home Devices (SACHD) has released a forecasting report that says the Sony PlayStation 3 will eventually outsell the Xbox 360 and the Wii, on route to 127 million units sold.
The “Taming the Waves: Games Console Life Cycles and Platform Competition,” report says that Sony’s PS3 will surpass the Wii eventually despite a giant gap now, as the firm believes the PS3 will still be a viable platform for at least five years after the Wii is replaced.
Overall, SACHD sees 103 million units sold for the Wii, and 127 million for the PS3. They did not offer a prediction for the Xbox 360.
“Nintendo has done a great job with the Wii in bringing console games to new audiences,” says SACHD analyst David Mercer. “But its sales are now falling, particularly in mature markets, and its installed base will peak in 2011. Ownership of both the PS3 and the Xbox 360 will hit their highest points between 2012 and 2014.”
The SACHD also says the “global installed base of home consoles will reach over 220 million” by the end of 2010.
