What do you think?  With the ludicrous amount of downtime for PSN, is this a nail in the coffin for Sony's console divisions?

Capcom have publicly declared they're losing millions in revenue from the downtime and obviously, they're not the only ones.  With all of the downtime and real lack of a concrete answer as to when it'll be back online, developers will no doubt be jumping ship to focus on the other platforms available.  How long until a developer sues for lost revenue?  Even more worringly for Sony, how long before a consumer sues over their lost personal details/creditcard info?  With America being of the sueing nature, they could bring the giant to its knees; even if a tiny percentage of the 24m+ take action.

Will this impede on the PS4 and sales of the PS3?  Will developers keep away from Sony platforms?

Gamer patience begins to wear thin as retailers report increased trade-ins of PS3 consoles for Xbox 360s.

The ongoing PlayStation Network outage is beginning to have an effect on the high street, Edge can reveal.

Our sources indicate a growing trend of PS3 consoles being traded in for cash or Xbox 360s, slumping sales of PSN points cards and a shift in the ratio of multiplatform game sales and pre-orders away from PS3.

“In the first week of downtime we did not really see any major change in sales or trades,” says one source, a store manager at a major UK retailer speaking on condition of anonymity. “However from the second week onwards we have seen an increase of over 200 per cent on PS3 consoles being traded in, split almost 50/50 between those trading for cash and those taking a 360 instead.”

Another source, working for an independent retailer in the South West, said he had seen a “massive increase” in the volume of PS3s traded in in recent weeks, with most exchanging for an Xbox 360. He describes those trading in their PS3s as “the hardcore online shooter crowd” – players who spend most of their gaming time playing the same game online, and who are therefore greatly impacted by the outage.

Tom Mestdagh, of Belgian indie Gameswap – the only retailer we spoke to happy to go on the record – agrees. “At the end of each month people come to sell their consoles,” he tells us. “People that need money [to pay bills]. What’s different this time around is that that they are bringing in PS3s together with all their games and they don’t want money, they want an Xbox 360. In every case it is because of Black Ops and or Modern Warfare 2.

“We’re just ten days into the month and already we have an increase of 200 per cent in PS3s coming into the store compared to all of March. Normally we sell them really fast, but not this time. We’ve only sold 30 to 40 per cent of our inventory right now.”

The outage is also affecting game-buying habits, with all of our sources reporting increased levels of trade-ins of Call Of Duty: Black Ops for PS3, with the Xbox 360 release relatively thin on the ground.

It is a fact borne out by the recent UK all-formats software charts. In the week ending March 16, 49 per cent of sales of Black Ops were for Xbox 360, with 37 per cent buying the PS3 version. The following week PS3 sales actually increased, split 52/40 in PS3’s favour.

Sony took PS3 offline on April 20, and informed consumers of the breach on April 26. The difference in sales figures since is telling: in the week ending April 30, Black Ops sales were split 59/30 per cent in Xbox 360’s favour; last week the distance grew even further, with 66 per cent of sales on Xbox 360, and a mere 24 per cent of buyers taking the PS3 version.

The same pattern can be seen in sales of FIFA 11, another hugely popular online title. In the week ending April 16, the split was 49/37 per cent in Xbox 360’s favour, 46/34 the week after, 52/26 in the week ending April 30 and 49/21 last week.

Our high street source reports that “pre-orders have been cancelled and flipped over to 360 versions of games,” with Mestdagh telling us: “People are cancelling their order of Brink for PS3. People that have an Xbox 360 have switched their pre-orders – others are just cancelling entirely.” Sales of PSN points cards, too, have plummeted over the past couple of weeks.

Perhaps the biggest shift, though, has been in customer satisfaction. Our high street source explains: “A lot of people have been phoning asking us about personal details on PSN as they are struggling to get a response from Sony themselves. Overall, people that have traded with us seem annoyed at how Sony has handled all of this, and say they would not trust them with details again in the future.”

Another source, who works for an independent retailer in northern England, says he has not noticed any significant increase in PS3 consoles being traded in, but said: “All we’ve seen is an incredible amount of disgruntled people annoyed that they can’t play online.” Mestdagh says that those who normally drop in for a spot of friendly console warfare “have stopped complaining about the fact that Microsoft charges for Xbox Live. It used to be a big problem for most of our PS3 customers.”

Of course, it must be noted that this is a small sample, and it seems that only those desperate for their online fix have taken the drastic step of ditching their PS3s entirely, but it is telling nonetheless.

UK hardware sales are rarely reported or broken down by platform, and Game, the UK’s biggest specialist retailer, failed to respond to a request for comment. As such we may never form a true picture of just how severely the PSN outage is affecting retailers, or those who are the most affected by the downtime, who have rarely been considered by media coverage to date: gamers.

 

I still love my PS3 but I've never played anything online….then again, pretty much the same for my 360.  Noone's ever around when I'm playing games/noone ever seems to be playing the same thing.

The PS3 is free to play online…

Still, it raises the whole debate of pay to play.  Consoles are doing it (well currently just the 360), it won't be long until the PC adopts a similar business model.

Gamer patience begins to wear thin as retailers report increased trade-ins of PS3 consoles for Xbox 360s

*Clears Throat -> Cough Cough*

*Engages Smug Mode*

*Stands on his soapbox*

I…. TOLD YOU SO!  But "Oh No", somebody/manybodys kept banging on about "but sales of the P$3 are still high"…  Fk sales (as I have said so many times before) they DONT tell you how many are returned AND THAT ARTICAL just clears up what I have been saying for YEARS!!!

More people I know own an xbox – FACT.  And I know how bias that sounds, but surly "based on sales" you'd expect me to know more people with P$3's.  fact is, I don't.  And I do know allot of people…

The rest of the people I do know who have "had" a P$3 (excluding certain people on this forum) have sold/traded in there P$3.  Mr Moakie Being the latest person to sell his P$3 a few weeks ago due to neglect, lack of online players and lack of any "variety" of cheap games, and he can stream HD movies free from Virgin on his package.

My Cousin – Quote "P$3 just seems to be a Solo Racing Simulator or a Fking 'Uncharted' walk about, which IMHO is a lazy Tomb Raider RIP off trying to copy a useless Benjamin Gates.  Oh, and WTF is 'Lost' all about"  (he traded his in for an xbox too)

Personally, I for one, hope sony pull out of the gaming scene.  Seriously, if you think about it, they haven't actually contributed allot, and there hardware is shit despite there bullsh*t attempt to pass the buck.  "But DVD's into the house hold" you cry… yea, great, whoop de fking do!  Still shit on games though.  More People were on PCs, or sega's.  Infact the PS2 was being traided in for N64's and/or Nin's Cube. 

Isn't Blu-Gay doing well… *He says… looking smugly at his 100's of free HD streaming Movies from Sky Player Anytime*

*Steps off soapbox*

*Does a smug walk back to his chair*

*would like to point out when I say XBox, I meen XBox360… just takes to long to say*

EripmaV said:

But previously, you were wrong. That article's written within the last week or so, reflecting on what's happend with the PSN downtime.

1) No sane human could afford or even pay the £6000 it cost.

2) The maniacs who did get one had no one to play GT Racing online with because everyone else could only afford an XBox360 with its huge library of MMO games (was that a factual dig? yes, yes I believe it was).

Its only NOW retailers are actually telling us about trade-ins, but its been happening for ages.  

I saw it comming.  It has come.. How "wrong" is that?

EripmaV said:

As I always say, sales figures don't lie.  Remember, they're on the web and the huge percentage of them are accurate and being part of various game's developers, I can say that sometimes I'm privvy to such info and prior to the PSN outage, they were actually gaining momentum on the 360.

your right, Sales figures don't lie.  But that's the point.  its all about "Sales".  Its NOT about how many people return them un-satified.  Sales might have been High, but returns are NOT taken into account.  And Everyone I know ('cept you Mr E) has sold or traded in there P$3 for an XBox360, simply because they don't use it or have no friend in Japan on PSN to play with.

So ner :P

It is a notoriously tricky platform to code for, unlike the 360 it doesn't use common PC runtimes and to utilise each core is an apparent nightmare.  Couple that with that Sony only allowed developers to use up to a certain number of them at once, it held it back somewhat unless it was a game specifically developed for the system.  It's also to the advantage for developers on the 360 because under the hood, it's basically a PC, running a Windows environment with DX9 powering the games.

Jamers, it's not the month of extra development time that's hitting the devs.  PSN being down won't affect that at all.  It's the lost revenue from PSN sales of games, content etc.  Take Capcom for example, they've gone public and declared they've lost millions of dollars in revenue.

I do agree, the LIVE experience (not that I ever play online these days, noones ever about playing anything interesting) is far more fluid and polished.  I'm more than happy to pay my £25 a year.