Sony: 9.8m PSN Members, Global News, Weather Service Announced

Sony has released a number of statistics on its PlayStation 3 and PSP products at a recent presentation that also saw news on its video service, as well as the announcement of a Wii News Channel-like information service called Life With PlayStation. The full presentation (pdf) by SCEI president Kaz Hirai has revealed a number of current stats from Sony's worldwide game operations, including worldwide PSP shipped numbers of 9.18 million in the second half of 2007, and 7.23 million PS3s in the same time. The numbers represent a 146 percent year over year increase for the PSP, and a 200 percent increase for the PS3. Sony says the units have seen life to date shipped numbers of over 37 million PSPs and 12 million PS3s. To date, Sony says it has reached 9.8 million user accounts on its PlayStation Network worldwide, serving "86 peta bytes" of digital content, a number it notes is equivalent to 17 million DVDs. Apart from the announced video download service expected to launch this summer in the U.S., and its previously announced 3D world Home, Hirai also announced "Life With PlayStation," a new service with an interface very similar to the Wii's News Channel. Users of Life With PlayStation can spin a 3D globe (also seen in its Folding@Home service) to view local weather statistics, as well as zooming in to view local news events happening in each area. No release date for the service has yet been announced, but Sony is expected to make a number of announcements at its forthcoming E3 conference.