Sony has 14 million ‘active accounts’ on PSN

Yesterday, Sony’s PlayStation 3 turned two years old. In addition to an official posting about the benchmark, Sony’s hardware marketing director John Koller hit fans with some hard numbers, the most striking of which is that 14 million out of a possible 17 million PlayStation 3 owners are maintaining “active accounts” on PlayStation Network.

In addition to the mad amount of subscribers, it was also announced that over 273 million pieces of content have been downloaded. Combine that with the fact that hardware sales are “up nearly 100 percent” and you start wondering if consumers are finally starting to drink the Sony Kool-Aid all over again.

With the Christmas season rapidly approaching, I keep thinking about the kid who is getting a new console. If I were to put myself in his parents’ shoes, what would I buy? Ultimately, I don’t have a good answer — but I do know that I would prefer to buy something that would hang around for a good while. Given the apparent success of PSN and new sales, how would you evaluate the console’s future? Would you buy one for a hypothetical child?