http://www.psu.com/node/11234

 "After a mere 6 months, Sony has created a very real online presence.

Straight from Gamer's Day, we've got the numbers of Sony's online world. First off, over 1.5 million users have created online accounts, with 775,000 coming from North America (we don't know if these are individual PS3s, as some people have multiple accounts for differing regions).

At this 6 month mark, Microsoft had only 500,000 users on Xbox Live. For those of you who think that's not a fair comparison, the 500,000 number also includes the free silver edition.

Six million pieces of content have been downloaded from the PlayStation Store. They didn't announce the ratio of free to paid content, but it's an impressive number nonetheless.

Finally, the 1.5 million users have logged in a total of 115 million times. So using our impressive math and reasoning skills, that's an average of 77 log-ins per PS3 owner. Not bad at all Sony.

Well the PlayStation Network has a bright future ahead of itself with Home on the horizon, but these numbers tell us it isn't doing so bad right now either."

So it looks like PSN has beaten xBox live in quantity, now Sony needs to contrate on upping is quality. 

you gotta remember though, Xbox Live started some time ago, in a time where not everyone was ready for Console Internet Gaming. Here in Britain, most people still had 56K modems when Xbox Live started. Now, however, everyone is equipped with Broadband and its much easier to set up internet gaming as most computers come Ethernet ports now as standard.

Those numbers are pretty good #'s for SONY. Does anyone know the numbers behind the Wii and it's virtual console are. Especially how many users went and downloaded the free internet service. Also just as insight. I know it was not that long ago but even the few years in between when the LIVE came out and when PSN came out the number of people who now have high speed internet has probably doubled if not tripled or quadrupled. So maybe that is not a fair comparison.

you also gotta rememeber some of those six million live users are original xbox users... and on top of that majority of those six million are silver account users... i would say 2 to 3 mil have gold accounts

Surprising considering that Sony's online service currently is inferior to Microsoft's. The 2.00 update around the corner which allows you to access the Crossbar in game (which allows for messaging and an exponential amount of other abilities that Xbox Live already offers) and Home should carve Sony's own niche in the online market.

 That is a good point, I forgot that xBox live started with the original xBox. At the same time Sony has done a good job if half of PS3 owners signed up for it, especially when the service isn't that good, and is terrible in the EU compared with NA and Japan.

They offered a free movie (Casino Royale) to the first 500,000 who signed up for PSN, so I can see how the adoption rate would be high. Free online, Free movie, win-win.

I don't think it's a fair comparison, but 1.5 million is still really good. I'd really like to find out the numbers for individual games, though. Tekken, Grand Turismo HD, Calling all Cars, flOw, MK 2 Online, Blast Factor, and others would be very interesting to see.

I've downloaded all the free content just because it's there, so what I'm really interesting in the payed-for numbers. Any chance we'll ever see that?

More importantly, how do I create a EU and/or Japanese account name?

i agree windbane i wouldnt say its beating it but 1.5 is still good.... i would also like to find out the breakdown of different games downloaded... they have a top ten list for each week. but i want numbers for each game

Is that the first 6 months of the 360 or xbox? if it's the original xbox, i'd be shocked if PSN didn't beat it, since almost noone had an incentive to play online.

 Also, the Wii, despite having no online games yet. Has the highest percentage of it's userbase connected to, and using, the internet.