Everything's golden

Not every PlayStation platform is selling brilliantly at the moment, but PSN sales are through the roof. SCEA executive John Koller believes that some of that success can be attributed to the presence of the PlayStation Plus subscription program.

“Since E3, we’ve seen a significant rise in PlayStation Plus adoption and we’ll be utilising this,” he told GamesIndustry.biz. “This is a nice weapon in our arsenal that we’ll be utilising.”

The genius of PlayStation Plus is that it trains players to get to grips with using the PlayStation Store. Koller notes that platform newcomers find the service particularly attractive because it provides them with access to an instant game library.

“The new consumers who are coming in in particular, which is what I’m looking at here, if we can introduce them to PlayStation Plus and this instant game collection idea, you’re bringing them into a world that may be a bit foreign to them if they don’t own a system this current cycle,” he continued. “So that comfort level is important to us, it’s important to publishers, it’s important I think to most people in this industry that we get them comfortable with digital content.”

In turn, that is driving PSN sales. A spokesperson for SCEA noted that 97 per cent of customers signed up to the service are happy with it, while a further 93 per cent intend to resubscribe. “The success of PlayStation Plus is contributing in a big way to driving overall PSN sales, as our last quarter was the biggest in terms of transactional sales in PSN’s six-year history,” the spokesperson added.

Excitingly, there’s no sign of the PSN slowing down. It’s proof that when Sony really puts its mind and corporate muscle behind a service, it can find tremendous success.

[source gamesindustry.biz]