Sony announced that monthly active users for PlayStation – which will primarily consist of PS5 and PS4 players, but may include a few PS3 stragglers, too – eclipsed all records in December 2023, as they totalled 123 million account logins overall. This could include multiple users on the same system, but demonstrates the broadness of the brand’s reach.
It’s an enormous improvement on December 2022, which tallied 112 million users. Obviously, engagement like this is good for PlayStation, because more monthly active users means a greater opportunity to flog PS Plus subscriptions or items on the PS Store. It also helps demonstrate just how big gaming has become.
Did you login to your PSN account in December 2023, and if so, what did you play? Let us know how you contributed to these record-breaking numbers in the comments section below.
[source youtube.com]
Comments 31
Wasn’t the PS4 at 120 million?
@11001100110zero This is active players. I think you're confusing with install base.
I am one of them.
@get2sammyb yeah my bad, was trying to multitask, completely missed it lol. Thanks.
Interesting that 50 million can go a month without touching thier system.
I contributed, I have multiple accounts in different regions and I was logging into all of them checking prices of the holiday sales 😁
@11001100110zero I went almost a whole year without touching my PS5.
I spent about 53 hours last year and it was all on God of War Ragnarok (Platinum) between January and February.
My daughter played some Astro's Playroom over her Christmas break from school - so that's something!
I do have Final Fantasy XVI, Horizon Forbidden West Complete Edition, and Lords of the Fallen on the queue for PS5, but I have to finish Super Mario RPG and Resident Evil 4 (XSX) first!
Do those numbers include PS players who have an account but don't sub anymore? I logged in a few times on PS4 to play some of my backlog but I haven't subbed to PS in around 2 years.
@11001100110zero i do that from time to time where i go a month or two without touching my ps5. I play 3rd party stuff on other platforms so I'm mostly just playing the exclusives from ps4/5.
I did get to be a part of history in December but it was spent playing Forspoken so i wasn't exactly having the time of my life.
@jedinite Yes!
@get2sammyb ok cool. Least I helped a bit lol.
Count me in for PS5 logins. December was playing Astro and GT7
Played games everyday last month and played quite a few
I like to try to do my bit every single day..... even if it's just a quick game of FiFa (ooops sorry, EA Sports FC24)
My son and I have accounts and they are on the PS3, PS4 Pro (x2) and PS5. Oh, and the Vita. Oh, and our PSPs!
So still around 60 million active PS4 users 3 years into PS5.
I'm not sure how much they count PS3 now as my 2023 playtime wasn't counted this year for my wrap up, and it was probably my most hours.
I always have to login a few times a day on playstation.com in Chrome, they can't remember my session after a couple of hours for some reason. Maybe that's why the numbers are inflated?
I've not played my PS5 for the bulk of last year but it's been getting a lot of use recently, mainly with GT7 on PSVR2 but I also want to get back to FFVII Remake, having left it at chapter 13 some time ago back on the PS4
@11001100110zero Where are you getting the 50 million users not using their machine from? Remember a lot of PS4 owners are now PS5 owners.
My daughter and I helped contribute to that number. I have been playing Nioh 2 Remastered and she and I have been playing WWE 2K23 together.
@TheCollector316 you play wrestling games with your daughter? Are you helping to develop her smack talk when playing too?
Honestly, what a great way to bond with your child! 👍🏻
@CharlieChooChoo
Haha! You know what, I was thinking about getting the latest game because it featured one of my favorite wrestlers, John Cena. I probably haven't watched wrestling in a decade, so I probably would have just passed. However, a friend of mine invited us over to watch Wrestlemania and I took my daughter with me. She was entranced and really latched onto the athleticism and positivity of Bianca Belair. So, naturally, we had to watch more wrestling. I ended up getting the game and now she likes recreating matches she sees on TV. I can't complain!
The next step will be taking her to a Raw or Smackdown show when they are in my area.
@TheCollector316 my parents took my brother and I to see the WWF (it was still called that when we saw it) one night and what a blast. Got to see Bret the Hitman Hart and Yokozuna throw down in the ring. Razor Ramone was my favourite back then and he was in the ring with Irwin R. Scheister and beat him, it was a good day.
@CharlieChooChoo
That sounds like an awesome time! I never went to wrestling before the Attitude Era, but I went a lot then. Bret Hart is my favorite wrestler of all time, but Triple H, The Rock, and John Cena are not far behind.
I’m on almost daily since around 2018 when I switched from being a PC-only bro to mostly a console casual when I got a PS4 Pro. It only solidified when I got a PS5 in February of 2021. Haven’t really felt the need to go back to PC since.
PS4 is still hanging in there.
Ichi! Ni! San!
I'm still playing and enjoying my PS3 more, to be honest. Even when it bothers me that PS2 games without ports don't have trophies. I think there's still between 1 and 2 million active users on the PS3 side, so although $ONY might not care about the PS3 any more, plenty of gamers do, especially for games that never got ports, or only got ones that were bad.
Never liked the PS4; boring design (physical console and UI), noisy under load, needed an SSD to bring it alive really otherwise everything was sluggish. I tried the original, Slim and Pro, never could keep them. Shame as some of the games were decent - inFAMOUS: Second Son is great even years later (I don't care how many Gen Zoomers describe it as "mid", a word I'm coming to hate as much as "based" for a representation of how crappy modern slang is - I prefer the 90s surfer whoah dude stuff, Bill & Ted style)
What amazes me is I bought Gran Turismo 7 recently on the PS5 and yep the graphics are better, but the UI and career progression were so kiddy table and lame (I hate the whole "chat heads" thing) I went back to Gran Turismo 6 where both the gameplay and the menu system is tolerable, despite 1080i plus screen tearing being the highest res on that game, even with a slightly overclocked RSX. It's just more fun, and graphics always take a backseat (literally) to raw gameplay goodness.
The industry is in such a weird place right now. As PlayStation breaks record after record, layoffs and studio shutdowns have been happening every other week.
While the projected weaker economy surely plays a part, I think the main issue is far more concerning: gaming as a business is firmly marching towards an unsustainable model. AAA game budgets have simply reached a level where the tolerance to risk in unbearable.
The even more concerning thing is that these issues usually do not resolve by themselves without a hard crash.
@zekepliskin
Not sure how you can criticise the PS4 for being 'sluggish' with a straight face while touting the virtues of PS3. Try syncing trophies or accessing the PS store on PS3, the very definitions of sluggish!
It's one thing to be deliberately contrary to try to get attention, but trying to claim in 2023 that PS3 is better than PS4 or PS5 is really pushing it ... I've been a playstation gamer since PS1, and there's no way I'd go back to the pre-PS4/5 eras. Time to stop living in the past!
@ecurb7 Not sure how you can criticise stuff that's just my opinion; it's so clearly worded as such I'm a bit miffed that anyone could think it was anything different 🤷🏻♂️🙄😂
I'm taking about general UI behaviour not specific stuff like syncing trophies, which to be fair if you do regularly doesn't take long (it's not a background process like PS4/5 because it was a "tacked on later" feature introduced to compete with Xbox Achievements, but you knew that, right? PS3 wasn't built with that as an integral feature). Original Phat PS3s with OS stored on flash NAND are actually pretty quick, more so if you replace HDD with SSD, the damn things fly. Later ones stored the OS on HDD and that hit performance a bit. Have you tried PS3s in various configs to see which ones are faster?
Not trying to be "deliberately contrary to try to get attention" again **just stating a preference**. If it's contrary so what, would be boring if everyone thought the same. It's like you're being po-faced and suggesting I'm trashing things for no reason. I've been a PS gamer since about '96 myself, still own three PS3s, a PS5, a PSP, a Vita, a modded Phat PS2 etc etc. So what, don't see how lifetime membership factors into rightness when talking about one's opinion. You can explain the train of thought behind that if you like, because I don't see the sense in it.
"trying to claim in 2023 that PS3 is better than PS4 or PS5 is really pushing it" - again better here is a relative term, I'm not wrong because I **prefer** an older console am I... unless you're suggesting you're so intolerant you're telling someone their opinion is wrong? Say it ain't so.
"Time to stop living in the past!" Riiiight. That must be it. 🙄 Even though the original thing I wrote mentions having a PS5, yeah? Which gets used several times a month. I could turn to you based on the tone of what you wrote and say, time to be a bit more tolerant and not see someone else's opinion as a slight on something you like, or as a personal attack when it wasn't addressed at you?
I just think the PS3 has the better library; most of the stuff I enjoy on the PS5 beyond newer titles like Returnal and Lies Of P (one of the greatest Soulslike games I've ever played that came out in 2023...) is the better PS4 stuff which is actually tolerable to play on a PS5 because the fans don't go nuts and spin at volumes loud enough to drown out the games, that sort of thing.
"I've been a playstation gamer since PS1, and there's no way I'd go back to the pre-PS4/5 eras"
Hey there Jim Ryan 👋🏻
Seriously though, that's your prerogative, and I'm not going to tell you you're wrong, like you've told me I'm wrong.
There's some games that never got ported across (either as a classic or a remaster), and some games that are just flat out better to play on older consoles for nostalgia and other reasons - for example GTA San Andreas as an original PS2 with the original soundtrack and heat haze effect intact rather than the trashed Definitive Edition versions which are an insult to the GTA 3D era.
Another cult favourite that springs to mind that never got out of the X360/PS3 editions is Lollipop Chainsaw, a hilarious and ridiculous zombie slasher game which is pure stupid fun and actually pretty tough in some places. Also the aforementioned Gran Turismo 6 - you can either play that on a PS3 (cheap) or a PC emulator (expensive if you want decent upscaling with performance) so it's obvious which I'd choose and a lot of people would. I suppose that applies to Metal Gear Solid 4 too, there's bunches of titles. And I'd definitely rather play the original HD collection remaster/ports of MGS2/3 than pay Konami for crappier versions of the same on PS4/5, stuff like that. Tons of good reasons to keep the old hardware around; if you don't see that, fine, but you don't get the right to criticise anyone who loves their PS3s more than their PS4s and PS5s, do you...
@GamingFan4Lyf 53 hrs. December was a busy month only played 29hrs, now for the whole year I logged 1,327 hrs 🤷♂️
2024 is going to get me some better PS5 hours. 👍
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