In terms of members anyway. In their official NPD press Release Sony acknowledges that there are over 12 million PSN members worldwide. Just released yesterday.

A couple of days ago a Microsoft representative speaking about the NXE was quated as sayin that the NXE will be available for all 12 million XBL subscribers on Nov. 19...

So that makes the two services equal in subscribers. Of course we all know the PSN is spread across both the PS3 and PSP, and since its free there are many multiple accounts but nevertheless PSN=XBL.

By Jan of next year I expect Sony to announe that they have the largest online community.

Thoughts?

Until today it wasnt possible to acces the PSN through the PSP so current PSN users are all PS3 ones.

It's free...it's going to become the largest, easily, even if it isn't now. If Ford is selling their pickups for 30k, and Chevrolet is giving them away free...who's going to distribute more?

Wait until PS3 catches up a little more..theres going to be a rather large gap in terms of online users.


*que the fanboy attack*

^^What are you talking about? Of course it was! Not the Playstation Store, maybe, but I could play online on PSP on its' launch day.

In accounts yes but in real online members no. Sony said a few months ago that there was less than 50% ps3 connected, for MS it's around 75%. As there are more 360 than ps3, we can say that many ps3 owners have many psn counts unlike xbox360 owners.

But well it's a question of "education" many 360's owners are used to play online (former pc or xbox players)

I doubt it will surpass Live. Wait until the end of the year.

240 million pieces of content downloaded is impressive for PSN.

By this logic, Minesweeper = World of Warcraft, because of the number of users. Also, the number of multiple accounts you mention would not be unique users, whereas virtually all Xbox live accounts are, meaning that PSN still has a little way to go...

Yeah I wouldn't be surprised if it those figures included:
- People who signed up for PSN but never use it
- Multiple accounts for one individual
- People who only buy content on PSN and not use the online multiplayer service

Compare that with XBL gold users, who are all guaranteed to be playing multiplayer online.

If it included both Gold and Silver users who buy content, then it wouldn't be equal.

Still, more amazing is that there are around 3 million+ users who have not created a PSN account.

Not everyone has internet access that doesn't mean they can't have a PS3. I generally acknowledged the points you made in the posts. And I know plenty of Gold members who don't play games online. I myself have 3 accounts and I play on all of the and downloaded games off every PSN store. I am sure MS include Silver members with the XBL memers. And that means around 9 million 360 owners don't use online at all.