The average PS3 owner doesn't play online games

So Ill explain to you why I feel this way. This weekend I finished Uncharted 2 and hopped on the multiplayer. I noticed that there were 10,000 Uncharted 2 players at about 10 PM EST. While I didnt have trouble finding a game at all, I was still shocked. The reason I was shocked is that the game has undoubtedly sold well over a million copies at this point. Three weeks in and my guess is the game sold between 1.3 and 1.5 million, and only 10,000 people are playing this at a peak time on a weekend. Now I know this is a single player based game, but the multiplayer is GOOD and obviously inspired by Bungie. So I would think people who actually played a little bit would be coming back to it. But lets say even 10 times that many people actually play the game online when they can. Thats still only about 7-8% of Uncharted 2 sales. Thats incredible to me that that small a percentage would be playing this great MP experience, which IMO really seperates itself from other FPS, and even GeoW.

Couple this with some really poor Borderlands sales on PS3, and I come to the conclusion that the average PS3 owner is not much of an online gamer. Now, obviously Im going to get flamed for this with numbers on PSN, and how everyone here plays online games on PS3. But just think about it for a minute. The biggest PS3 release of the year, with easily the most first month sales, has only 10% (a forgiving estimate)of people on its multiplayer portion. Seems pretty obvious to me.

I agree.

Honestly, who cares? That's enough for people who do want to play online. Why does the modern gamer have to be obsessed with online?

I suppose that is true. But, as you said, it wasn't hard finding games or anything like that, so does it matter? Is it a problem?NAPK1NS

I don't normally play online. I'm just not as skilled at multiplayer games and don't want get owned all the time. I'll admit it. :)

I also don't have time to spend hour playing online, even if I wanted to.

As for posting on SW, I have plenty of time to do that. :)

I don't think you can characterize online play for a whole system based on one game. Especially when that game is known for it's campaign. I think a lot of people who bought Uncharted still haven't tried the online. Some games just work like that, I have a lot of friends that still play COD4 and a lot of them never played the campaign.

I'll check out the multiplayer after I finish the single player. I think I'm at chapter 17. Just had my first glance of the supernatural beastie of this game. I can't wait to hate it. :P Also, I'm playing on hard and the game is way easy. hahaJandurin

But yes, to the rest of you, this is just an observation. And I know it doesnt really matter how MANY people are playing it, but basically Im concerned the community will die very fast. And I actually enjoy the MP so I would rather that not happen. Not to mention I wish people were playing this instead of crappy killzone, MW and whatever else. Not that those communities are booming either.

I can assure you that there are lots of people who even don't know that they can play online. They think that PS3 is just a better version of PS2 or even PS1 and they don't realize how many features it has. It is the same with every casual player who bought any consoles when they became cheap.

Umm the multiplayer is a combination of gears, bungie, and infinity ward inspired. Not any particular one.

I think part of the problem is that the demographics of the PS3 user base is older than XBOX 360 and thus have jobs and families to take care of besides playing online all the time. I know I jump on U2 MP almost daily but I have limited time also since I work 5 days a week and have a life outside of online play. I will say besides this game I don't play anything else online as I prefer SP campaign.

I think part of the problem is that the demographics of the PS3 user base is older than XBOX 360

3rdbass

[QUOTE="NAPK1NS"]I suppose that is true. But, as you said, it wasn't hard finding games or anything like that, so does it matter? Is it a problem?Jandurin

I'm liking Uncharted 2 a lot. I got irritated at the battle where I had to wait for stupid blonde head to drive over to me and I was in a train car dodging bullets. Haven't decided on the story. Seems good and compelling, but I'm definitely hoping for some decent resolution/climax.Jandurin

I rarely go online with PSN. Dunno why, I just don't. Same with the Wii. SpruceCaboose

[QUOTE="3rdbass"]

I think part of the problem is that the demographics of the PS3 user base is older than XBOX 360

Jandurin

And theres this. "TheSony consoleskews the oldest of the three......"

http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/consumer/every-gaming-system-has-its-fans-but-women-like-wii/

I think part of the problem is that the demographics of the PS3 user base is older than XBOX 360 and thus have jobs and families to take care of besides playing online all the time. I know I jump on U2 MP almost daily but I have limited time also since I work 5 days a week and have a life outside of online play. I will say besides this game I don't play anything else online as I prefer SP campaign.

3rdbass

Are you playing on Hard? Yea the game is quite easy, but also, it fools you into thinking that because any time I died it would restart me right where I died. Its like a complete role reversal from DS. I would take alot more risks because of this :Ph575309

[QUOTE="3rdbass"]

I think part of the problem is that the demographics of the PS3 user base is older than XBOX 360

Jandurin

Here are the links that you requested.

http://www.joystiq.com/2008/06/23/new-study-compares-360-ps3-consumers/

http://gamer.blorge.com/2009/02/19/how-the-wii-ps3-and-xbox-360-appeal-to-different-demographics/

Anyone who bought U2 for the multiplayer is kidding themselves, same goes for people who tries to base their theory from its MP.

God forbid that you use something like COD4 or SFIV. :roll:

3rdbass

Honestly, who cares?

dual_boot

I didnt even need to read the rest because I agree. Thats enough to find a game and while online isnt the ps3s strong point they have very solid S.p focused games. Just saying how I see things, because quite frankly, 2mil or 2 thousand people; I dont care, its enough.

So Ill explain to you why I feel this way. This weekend I finished Uncharted 2 and hopped on the multiplayer. I noticed that there were 10,000 Uncharted 2 players at about 10 PM EST. While I didnt have trouble finding a game at all, I was still shocked. The reason I was shocked is that the game has undoubtedly sold well over a million copies at this point. Three weeks in and my guess is the game sold between 1.3 and 1.5 million, and only 10,000 people are playing this at a peak time on a weekend. Now I know this is a single player based game, but the multiplayer is GOOD and obviously inspired by Bungie. So I would think people who actually played a little bit would be coming back to it. But lets say even 10 times that many people actually play the game online when they can. Thats still only about 7-8% of Uncharted 2 sales. Thats incredible to me that that small a percentage would be playing this great MP experience, which IMO really seperates itself from other FPS, and even GeoW.

Couple this with some really poor Borderlands sales on PS3, and I come to the conclusion that the average PS3 owner is not much of an online gamer. Now, obviously Im going to get flamed for this with numbers on PSN, and how everyone here plays online games on PS3. But just think about it for a minute. The biggest PS3 release of the year, with easily the most first month sales, has only 10% (a forgiving estimate)of people on its multiplayer portion. Seems pretty obvious to me.

h575309

NO dude. the Naughty Dog servers place you into 'regions' wherein you are coupled with players who are the nearest in terms of geographical situation. i'm from Canada and i have a friend in the US (East Coast), and our numbers differ by THOUSANDS. i had about ~12 000 players while he had around ~15 000 in his screen. so yea...even though the game is region-free, it's most unlikely that you'll play with someone from, let's say, Korea or Japan because of ping and such.

I really highly doubt it thats the real number as when you get in your only in a 1 server so thats the total number of people on your server.. i played the game yesterday and i saw a 20,000 players there guessing thats the number of people on my server

[QUOTE="Jandurin"][QUOTE="3rdbass"]

I think part of the problem is that the demographics of the PS3 user base is older than XBOX 360

h575309

And theres this. "TheSony consoleskews the oldest of the three......"

http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/consumer/every-gaming-system-has-its-fans-but-women-like-wii/

Honestly, who cares? That's enough for people who do want to play online. Why does the modern gamer have to be obsessed with online?

dual_boot

I play online, just not on the ps3. I use my ps3 for grand single player experiences only. I think the problem is because of the "mic" issue...i just feel disconnected from other players on psn. That is probably not a strong argument, but that is how i feel.

Agreed, the PS3 online service is REAL lack luster... I would rather pay $4 a month for their service if it ment having a multiplayer similar to XBL.sSubZerOo

Uncharted 2 has a dedicated server. What else do you want? Stupid Modern Warfare 2 isn't even going to have one and that is what has ruined that whole series online for me. I hate lag determining the outcome of my game. I hate Activision!!!!!! Burn in hell Activision!!!!! You won't get a cent from me.

ugh, as i've said, Uncharted 2 has different servers depending on your region. so you get different numbers if you're 10 000 miles apart. geez.

Interesting theory but I disagree. I don't think that the average PS3 owner doesn't play online but I feel that for the most part the PS3 gaming audience is far more diverse then the 360s. I don't really think the examples you used really are great examples to prove your point. You hit the nail on the head when you said Uncharted 2 is a single player game first and an awesome multiplayer game second. Unlike many of our modern day FPS that have a weak story and basically sell due to it's multiplayer, Uncharted is not like that. It's a game that most people will buy to continue the saga of Drake. It's not to say that they won't play the multiplayer but first they will focus on SP. Not to mention the fact that there have just recently been alot of big PS3 releases, Ratchet and Clank, Demon's Soul and Uncharted all launched very close together. I know I just picked up Ratchet and Clank, Tekken 6 and Uncharted 2 last week and haven't had time to get passed Tekken 6. My feeling is that unlike the 360, where almost 70% or so of their fanbase is in NA, the PS3's fanbase is spread out in three regions almost evenly to it's proportions. Because of this you have a varied fanbase that aren't gonna be like NA buying tons of FPS. They have different tastes and seemed to have been very content adopting a variety of genres, without one totally dominating. I mean there have been plenty of multiplayer games that have sold equal to or in a higher concentration on the PS3 like COD4. And I know people didn't buy that for the SP mode. Everyone is harping over how many people are on Uncharted 2, its a SP game first and people who love that game will spend time playing it's SP to unlock everything, not skip it and go to multi like COD games. Javy03

I think the fact that less than 1% of sales are playing this game at a time is reason enough to show that ps3 owners play games online much less often than a 360 owner. Theres plenty of other examples of communities dying out for MP based games as well. And the fact that you say people would rather play the SP and get all the trophies than jump into MP furthers the point that they steer away from MP. This isnt necessarily a bad thing.

[QUOTE="h575309"]

[QUOTE="Jandurin"] All I will say is: LINK?Ontain

And theres this. "TheSony consoleskews the oldest of the three......"

http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/consumer/every-gaming-system-has-its-fans-but-women-like-wii/

Look at the PDF. The usage skews higher than the 360 by a good amount.

http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/4th-qtr-2008-console-gender-usage-abridged.pdf

You can see its pretty obvious the ps3 skews to the 18-34 yr olds, while the 360 seems to be about even between

the only reason this is a problem is because after the first couple of weeks it's difficult to get rooms in some games, smaller less popular titles like battlefield 43 are unplayable on some days.

kind of strange to be able to find star wars battlefront 1 games active on xbl and having to resend the game search 50 times to get into a bf43 match on psn.

I think the fact that less than 1% of sales are playing this game at a time is reason enough to show that ps3 owners play games online much less often than a 360 owner. Theres plenty of other examples of communities dying out for MP based games as well. And the fact that you say people would rather play the SP and get all the trophies than jump into MP furthers the point that they steer away from MP. This isnt necessarily a bad thing.

h575309

I really highly doubt it thats the real number as when you get in your only in a 1 server so thats the total number of people on your server.. i played the game yesterday and i saw a 20,000 players there guessing thats the number of people on my server

finalstar2007

I play more onl;ine than off, but on the weekends I usually have better things to do than play vids. Also, the time of day may have something to do with it as well. The COD's usually have many more players online than that.

You have absolutely nothing to back your claim up with.

Not only that, but this weekend ND had a special event with double exp/cash and everyone as zombies and skels and still only had 10-14k all weekend. People who are saying this doesn't matter don't get it. Developers may not put the care into or even have multiplayer at all if more people aren't playing. Also I do have a hard time finding Objective based and Elimination matches in U2 a lot of times. This is a big deal.

Not only that, but this weekend ND had a special event with double exp/cash and everyone as zombies and skels and still only had 10-14k all weekend. People who are saying this doesn't matter don't get it. Developers may not put the care into or even have multiplayer at all if more people aren't playing. Also I do have a hard time finding Objective based and Elimination matches in U2 a lot of times. This is a big deal.

SpideR_CentS

[QUOTE="finalstar2007"]

I really highly doubt it thats the real number as when you get in your only in a 1 server so thats the total number of people on your server.. i played the game yesterday and i saw a 20,000 players there guessing thats the number of people on my server

Zaibach

That's what happens when you actually have dedicated servers :)

Whomever is saying its differant servers are wrong. I play with people all around the world, if it was differant servers why would I be playing with french people when I live in NY?

Whomever is saying its differant servers are wrong. I play with people all around the world, if it was differant servers why would I be playing with french people when I live in NY?

SpideR_CentS