A new survey from The Diffusion Group shows that Sony’s Playstation 3 is the most connected of the 3 major consoles, with 78% of all the consoles connected to the internet. Oddly, that still puts them in third place for number of people online.
Sales figures show that the Playstation 3 has sold over 33 million units worldwide, while Microsoft’s Xbox 360 has sold over 39 million. Nintendo’s Wii continues to have a huge lead, selling over 69 million- which means that with 54 percent of Wii users online, Nintendo has more online users than Sony has consoles on the market.
New software and third party partnerships have allowed the consoles to be more than just outlets for gaming, and all three companies are taking full advantage of that fact. This week the Nintendo Wii became the latest and the last console to allow Netflix to stream instantly to the console. Xbox Live has released several third party apps including Facebook and Last.fm, while the PS3 has a built in web browser. All three also offer multiple sources of video content and donwloadable games for sale.
This is a trend we will definitely be seeing more of. Just last week it was reported that a staggering 2.5 million online users had purchased the Modern Warfare 2 “Stimulus Package” DLC, bringing in $37.5 million, all purchased online. Expect game developers to stare lovingly at those figures while encouraging developers to consider additional DLCs for upcoming titles.
