It may have taken longer than expected but Sony's various services related to the PlayStation 3 are back online all over the world. As part of an apology by the company, it offered a number of free games to PSN members such as Infamous, LittleBigPlanet, Dead Nation and WipEout through a "Welcome Back" program. Sony will be delighted to hear that the program has been called a resounding success by research firm EEDAR.
EEDAR, referencing IGN GamerMetrics data, said that all four Welcome Back titles were in the top 25 of consumer reported title acquisitions in June 2011. Additionally 17 percent of IGN users indicated that they acquired a PSN digital title in June 2011, up from 13 percent in March 2011 before Sony had to take down PSN.
But the most interesting data point in the report indicates that the Welcome Back program may have boosted PS3 game sales as well. From the report:
"Among users claiming title acquisition in June 2011, the PlayStation 3 had a 44% share among 7th generation home consoles, up from 40% prior to the PlayStation Network outage. As with the previous analysis, removing the four Welcome Back titles resulted in a 1% increase in market share from March 2011. While this increase in market share is small, the fact that the PlayStation 3 market share increased both with and without the free offerings indicates that the Welcome Back Program likely boosted sales of other paid content, specifically those available either exclusively through download or those that had a physical or digital purchase options."
Of course it could just be that consumer confidence in Sony' PSN returned at a rapid rate. After nearly two and a half months people just wanted to get back to their routines.
Source: IndustryGamers
Comments
Re: EEDAR: PSN 'Welcome Back' Program Boosted PS3 Sales
I've been saying Sony should just leave the stuff up or arrange a sort of "Welcome to PSN" program. I mean a trial period of Playstation Plus would be a good idea and free stuff is a great way to grease the wheels.