PSN Outage Starting To Show At Retail

“The ongoing PlayStation Network outage is beginning to have an effect on the high street,” Edge is claiming this afternoon.

The respected magazine claims that they have spoken to sources who say there’s a “growing trend of PS3 consoles being traded in for cash or Xbox 360s” in addition to “slumping sales of PSN points cards” and a “shift in the ratio of multiplatform game sales and pre-orders away from PS3”.

Our source, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that from the second week onwards they saw “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 said that they had seen a “massive increase” in the number of PS3s being traded in, mostly for 360s.

One (Belgian) retailer speaking on the record, Gameswap, said that although gamers commonly trade in their consoles at the end of the month to pay bills, this time around they’re “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,” said the retailer.

The same source said it’s affecting game sales too.  “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.”

There’s much more in the Edge article, including signs that people are becoming ever more frustrating with Sony’s customer services.  Remember that this is just from a sampling of retailers, getting the larger chains to talk on the record (or otherwise) would be considerably more telling…

185 Comments

  1. I think people who are really trading in their console to play Call of Duty need to re-evaluate their priorities.

    • Hehe well said :)

      • Indeed well said. At first evaluation of this specific news, I was saddened that we’re losing people from the beloved PS3 just as it seems (to me at least) to be growing stronger over the 360, which has been reigning over it in sales since release. But, I believe that it would likely take millions (and I mean multiple millions) of trade-ins to make a noticeable effect in our personal online interactions after PSN is restored. I think that, in congruence to Person678’s statement, people who trade their consoles in over not being able to play Call of Duty aren’t the kind of people that we really care to keep on the PS3.
        I personally think it’s a bold (and rather stupid) move to trade a console in over one series of games especially when there are PLENTY of single player games, old and new, to complete and ENJOY without the requirement of online interaction.
        I may be being nostalgic, but I find that the way games should be enjoyed is through offline single player experience [or even offline multiplayer, with a buddy sitting right next to you] over online multiplayer experience.

        I’ve personally beaten Portal 2 single player and multiplayer alongside my little brother (which I thought was actually a GREAT way to bond with him which I wouldn’t have been able to do with a randomly matched person through online interaction) and began hunting for missed Trophies after that.

        I do miss being online, but I’ve not once contemplated trading in my console over not having it.

      • Nicely written AJ, I completely agree. Personally, though I feel for Sony, I would rather those fools don’t use the same console as me anyway.

    • Well you can tell them to re-evaluate their priorities but if this report is right it’s happening and it’s bad news for those of us left with a PS3 as there will be less development for it if the 360s installed base is much higher

      • I’m with CC on this one!

        Not everyone needs to or should be into every game that comes out! I’ve got people on my friends list who in 3 years have NEVER played any other game apart from cod! that’s what they’ve bought it for! Are they wrong? No course there not!

        What’s wrong with individuals liking call of duty! If thats all they play so what? my brother only plays cod on his ps3 nothing else!… But he loves his PC gaming,

        People try to slate people just because all they like is COD, get over it! The people playing are happy little chappys

      • theres nothing wrong with playing one game, but most should probably hang up their rifles once in a week and leave their bedrooms :P

    • Hit the nail on the head Person678, if some couldn’t possibly go another day without cod and feels like trading in a console for another console purely so they can get it fix says it all really….

      • so they can get “a” fix

        grrrrr damn the lack of an edit button! :P

      • Why? If those people bought their consoles to play those games in that way and after after several weeks downtime they can’t, what’s the point of holding on to the PS3?

        It’s quite an assumption to think everyone thinks about their PS3 the same way as you do

      • No but you should play all the parts of the game other wise you might lose a lot like you don’t get to see how good a games SP might be of course everybody is entitled to play their games how they like

      • true cc, but noone should live just for cod, its unhealthy!! and selling your console will also mean you lose your account and all the unlockables. Surely the hardcore cod’ers wont want to go back to ‘noob’ status

      • What a silly discussion this is. If people like to play nothing but COD online then so be it, they aren’t hurting anyone.

      • I agree. It really is sad that they can’t possibly wait until it’s back online. What’s wrong with playing single player games? I’ve been cracking on with shift 2 and motorstorm apocalypse SP while it’s been down. In a way i’m glad that PSN has been down, otherwise i probably wouldn’t have put as much time into those.

      • DrNate86 I am only being half serious with my comments, well maybe 60/40 for funzies :P

        They are hurting themselves dammit, the body needs sunlight!!!! :P

      • Hehe well that’s true, the funny little pale ones. No vitamin K for them!

      • I can’t believe anyone in their right mind could begin to defend trading in a console because of such a small thing. The Single-player still works fine, or you could play something else? Or maybe you could get a social life? You know, actually interact with humans in the real world. You never know, you could actually get laid…

    • This sort of trending is inevitable and very harmful to Sony (in the short term). Sure, order will be restored and one day this will all be a distant memory but right now, it’s harming sales of software, hardware and their reputation. Let alone the knock-on effect to small devs who rely more on the PSN for their revenue stream.

    • You might not realise this but CoD is in demand. And if that demand can’t be supplied, the people that demand it will look elsewhere for a supply. Imagine if they was a grocery store that sold a certain kind of fruit you really liked, then they sold out of that fruit, but the store across the street still had that fruit in stock. What would you do? Stop eating your favorite fruit, or go across the street to their competitor where they still had a supply. It’s all supply and demand. IMO people with blind loyalty need to re-evaluate their life (not aimed at anybody here). If a company can’t supply the supply part, they deserve to go bankrupt as that’s the law of business. It’s funny how many people have defended Sony for just trying to make a profit, saying “that’s business”, but expect people to ignore the other law of business which is supply and demand.

    • haha. I’m not saying I don’t miss playing CoD but it has def made me spend more time on my other games. Working towards getting those trophies.

      • Viva Trophy hunting! It has been a while since I’ve done some whoring myself.

  2. “slumping sales of PSN points cards” is pretty much a given at the moment right? Considering there is no store to redeem them?

    • I bought some recently, ready for PS+ renewal. but yeah, what do they expect….

    • I don’t suppose there’s a discount going on these PSN cards :)

      • Baha! Wishful thinking! (From me too) ;D

    • I can see sales of point cards massively picking up once the PSN store is working again, I know I’ll be considering moving to those instead of using my credit card.

      • definitely, I will be using them instead.

      • I’m joining this band wagon too!

      • Maybe it is all just an elaborate ruse to promote PSN cards??

      • ^ i think the over $1.5 billion loss that Sony has occurred, the significant amount of disruption and the breaching of personal sensitive information massively outweighs again short term gains from PSN card promoting.

      • BLAGGER – fyg I had £1600 come out of my bank a/c today, whether it was linked to PSN hacking or not, its never happened before, and I am not taking that risk again. Nothing wrong with using them anyway, no bandwagon here.

      • Yeah, go and buy them from an online retailer with your credit card. I happen to know for a fact that two big online game retailers were hacked within the last 18 months and lost card details.

      • Heh, yeah. Luckily I live near a GAME.

  3. I wont be switching.But I am starting to miss my regular session of ‘online shooter’. Hurry up!! To make things worse, My copy of brink turned today. Lucky ive got football to watch this evening or id be quite frustrated I imagine!

    • I’m assuming you’re watching the playoffs? Who you sticking up for?

      I do like playing on one TV and having football on the TV next to it.

      • Swansea :D

      • gonna lose swansea!! btw im from Cardiff

      • I’m from bridgend, so my choice of side goes to whoever wins :P

      • I’m from Norwich so I’m quite interested to see who will join us.

        Think it’ll be a Swansea v Cardiff final.

  4. i think its a bit excessive to trade in your ps3 for a 360 just because the PSN is down. what’s wrong with a good story like portal 2 or mass effect 2?

    • Yeah that is what i would like to ask these people it’s not like your console is broken or anything there is still a boat load of good single player games with good stories

    • Exactly, I did go out and get a 360. But then there’s no way I was going to give up my PS3 with the likes of Uncharted 3 to come out this year.

      The only thing I’ll be using the 360 for once PSN is back is the odd exclusive (I know there’s not too many of them around these days!) and the few Xbox Live Arcade games that aren’t available on PSN.

      • Because some of us only like to play MP where as some guys skip the MP for the SP experience. Anyway I’ve been playing BF2 on the PC and having a right blast!

      • Well if the game i buy has both MP and SP i play both but i still buy my games because of the SP and play the SP more maybe people who buy games just for the MP could use this as an excuse to try the SP part of their games they might actually like it

    • some people just have a console to play call of duty online all the time

    • tried playing the killzone 3 story by my self but it just isn’t as fun without split screen so its red dead redemption again for me. second time through and still loving it

  5. I’ll be honest this doesn’t come as a surprise. I today was looking at PS3 games and was gonna pick up Virtual Tennis 4 however ended up not getting it because I was gonna wait to see what happens with the network. Don’t get me wrong I love my ps3 and won’t be trading it in just currently there seems very little point in buying ps3 games when you don’t get the full experience.

    • top spin 4 is an in depth experience of tennis and id recommend it (offline and only play). SP games are a great way to spend your time (or other real life social activities) – going through assassins creed brotherhood DLC and Call of Duty: black ops i borrowed so it hasnt really affected my gaming experience much

  6. It’s just a phase in my opinion. Cancelling of PS3 preorders for Xbox 360 versions is inevitable. In fact, I recently did just that with my Brink order. Why get it on PS3 when PlayStation Network is currently down? Had Sony brought their services back up last week then I’d have kept my PS3 order. When PSN does eventually come back up I’ll return to my usual trend of getting multiplatform games for PS3.

    • My thoughts exactly. It makes perfect sense to shift your orders to the Xbox version, especially with such an online heavy game. Same goes for a decline in PSN cards, there is nothing to spend them on. It’s pretty expected news in my opinion. Slightly more surprising that people are trading in their consoles and game libraries to shift to the Xbox, but if they are one of the many who play nothing but COD online, then who can blame them?

  7. It would be interesting to know if TSA’s traffic has differed much from a typical week while PSN has been down.

    • Still the same I guess, would be interesting though

    • i’m guessing its gone up. i’ve noticed a few new faces around here since the news broke out. people want to know whats going on

  8. because of CoD?? Jesus christ! Thats pure addiction right there. They need to sort themselves out. This PSN outage is a bright sign to those people.

    • That’s my thought: surely if you only play COD, it’s daft to buy a 360, as you’re paying to play online? You’d just end up spending loads more money to play an identical game (particularly as you won’t get the full value of your PS3 for trading it in) just to avoid having no access to the multiplayer section for a month or so.

  9. The slump is PSN card sales could also be due to the recent changes. You used to be able to pick up £20 cards for £16. That’s harder to do now and they’ve replaced the £20 cards with £25 and £35 ones.

    I’m not suprised games sales have dropped. This year has been great for the ps3 in terms of games, the PSN being down did seem to conincide will a bit of a lull. The next 2 weeks have a big increase of games. Portal 2 and SOCOM came out on 22nd; there’s not really been anything out since then.

    If there are people just wanting to play COD then why didn’t they get a 360 to start with (unless they really wanted free online play). The console is cheaper and more geared to online FPS.

    I really haven’t missed the PSN, mainly as I hate online gaming (split screen all the way!) and I have loads of great single player games.

  10. Because of COD? *Sigh* Surely there are single-playeer games that can be useful to kill some time. For instance, LA noire going to be nout next week, or Maybe these people are well and truly lost in gaming.

    • But then who are we to judge?

    • I finished Arkham Asylum during the first weekend it was down. Then started playing GTA4 as I never got round to finishing it. Unfortunately I soon got bored as I missed my fix of online gaming!

    • just look at the figures of the CoD sales. Some people get a console just for that & if that ain’t working for three weeks, well… you get this

      • I know its a bit of a cliched sterotype these days, but I genuinely have friends that play nothing other than Call of Duty & FIFA. One has bought Bad Company 2 fairly recently as I kept annoying him to buy it but will still only play MW2 or Black Ops.

      • my little brothers just like that. i find it horrible. so narrow minded. i gave him, assassins creed, batman, dragon age, motorstorm, resistance and killzone to try out but he kept playing call of duty. sigh

      • Sigh indeed! I love playing Bad Company 2 but most of my mates complain that the maps are too big or some other shit excuse. Very annoying!

      • Surely the huge maps of BC2 are a selling point? I generally hate war-type shooters, but i love BC2.

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