PlayStation Home has been an inexplicable success for Sony ever since the poor man's Second Life was launched last year. However, if recent figures are correct, it might start to finally make sense -- Home just keeps attracting curious people, who visit once and then rarely return.
Sony's Peter Edwards has revealed that over seven million people are signed up to PlayStation Home, but this is contrasted by a return rate of 25 - 30%, meaning that most people have just signed in, checked it out, realized it was awful, then left. Edwards is quick to point out that the figures aren't definitive, but it's quite telling about how most PSN members are using the "service."
According to Edwards, "only" 80% of Home users are young males, and he claims that "Home is slowly broadening the appeal of the console market out to a widening demographic." In addition, Edwards boasts that over six million Home items have been downloaded over the past few months, and that Sony is making money from the sale of pretend furniture.
I don't even get how a mere 30% are even finding reasons to go back to Home, but that's humanity for you. Someone's always got to like something.
Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
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Contest:
9:40 AM on 07.15.2009
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I too never came back. I still don't see the appeal.
That's the reason why.
For some reason, I want to believe that a large portion of this 30% is stay-at-home moms/wives whose husband isn't necessarily even a hardcore gamer, but rather a latest-and-greatest, cutting-edge technophile.
In before, "BCUZ I BOUGHTED MY VIDEOGAMES 2 PLAY TEH VIDEOGAMNES!!LOLZ!!1" - that is exactly the kind of attitude that will always make gamers appear to be a demographic of poorly-socialized man-children. Good work; only corporate money-vacuums will ever take your hobby seriously.
As far as 25-30% retention rate goes, that's not exactly world-ending. Twitter, for example, claims to have around a 40% retention rate through the web and third party applications. (27% through the web alone)
HEY, SONY!
GET THE FUCKING GAME LAUNCHING ALREADY!
That would make it a useful app, that and some extra stuff to interact with. i'd love to meet up with people in a home space, have a chat, jump into a game - could be like, the whole missing party system, ya know?
I log into home every few weeks, look around at the new shit, figure out there's not much to do in there and go back to Socom or something.
Come on Sony, people are bored of Home and are not going back because it's not finished and is missing major features like the FUCKING GAME LAUNCHING!
Pro tip for Sony: Give PS Home to a real developer team that knows how to make a fun game, a game that just happens to incorporate the aspects of Home that are at it's core.
It is boring, no reason to log in.
There are some missed opportunities though - particularly media sharing. Why can't I invite people to my pad to watch movies? That would be awesome - especially since I have a lot of friends that are far away.
Still, if they keep the content steady and get a little creative then I can see myself enjoying the service for a while. Xi consumed my life for a while and better content offerings (such as TV stations that operate like mini-Hulu's or Crunchyrolls) would be brilliant.
And more ARGs. Home's structure is made for ARGs.
The main issue is that Sony promised a lot with Home, and so far has failed to really deliver. The really pushed it as a system-selling application, and hasn't shown why it should be considered such at this point. If it was really cool, then you can bet that most of the people on here would be raving about it, but in the end it's just not where they claimed it would be. Also, at least for me, it seems like they're hiding behind these extra apps and not concentrating on where a game machine should be strongest: it's game library.
Also, is showing the mainstream world this aspect of our hobby really the best way to draw new players in? If you've never played a game before, and the first experience is running around the ghost town that is Home and you get really bored, you could very well dismiss gamers as being into stupid things and in the end the same result is gained. It's like the glut of "casual" shovelware on the Wii. The idea of getting new gamers into the mix with casual games isn't in itself a bad thing, it's the fact that most of them blow that's the real problem. They're doing more to turn people away from the hobby than any basement-dwelling stereotype.
But it was only for a few minutes, I swear! I'd just been badly sucking at Street Fighter IV and wanted to see if I could dress my avatar up as Ryu to make me feel better. The Ryu outfit wasn't in my wardrobe though, so I left. I was probably barely in there for 200 seconds. Not including loading times of course, but still...
I accept full responsibility for this statistic coming to pass...
@Discarded
I logged in for 3 total minutes when the Red Bull aviation mini-game came out, then deleted it, so I know how it is!
And they actually have done some interesting things with Home. I can totally see how someone could be into something like Xi (the Home ARG from a few months back), even if I don't have any interest in doing it personally. But it's the same with an MMO like WOW. I can completely understand what other people might see in it, even if I don't understand why they find that something that is worth their time.
At the very least Home is an interesting experiment, which I would have conducted better if I were designing it, and it's something that none of the other console manufacturers would have done, but they'll all learn lessons from it. Probably the wrong ones, but they'll learn from that, too. I'd much rather have seen them use Home as a sort of jumping off point to a cross-game persistent avatar system. Kind of like what Microsoft has been doing, but at a much deeper level and without the content restrictions for games that include the avatars.
"What about these figures that say only 30% return"
"well figures aren't definitive"
LOL @ PR.
Do playstation owners call 360 a poor man's ps3?
Wait... Sometimes...
In this case, those hoops are merely logging into Home and doing anything in it.
Unless they actually make it useful, of course.