With the Playstation Network fiasco still unresolved it seems gamers are starting to jump ship as many begin to trade in their PS3’s for Microsofts Xbox 360.
Via Edge a store manager at a major UK retailer speaking on condition of anonymity was quoted as saying, “In the first week of downtime we did not really see any major change in sales or trades.”
“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.”
From another source it was reported that a ‘massive’ number of PS3s have been traded in this past week. Most of the gamers giving up on the PS3s seem to be fans of ‘online shooters’ hence why their patience is running so thin.
The news get’s even more sour as game trade in’s have also gone up for titles released on the PS3. Call of Duty: Black Ops on the PS3 has seen a substantial increase in games being returned in comparison to the Xbox version which is barely being traded in at all.
Since the PSN was taken offline the difference in sales has become more and more noticeable. In the week ending April 30th, the Xbox 360 saw 59% of Black Ops sales go Microsofts way, compared to a mere 30% for Sony. Then this week just gone the numbers further leant towards the Xbox with 66% of Black Ops games being sold on the 360 and just 24% for the PS3. So you start to realise just how much of an impact this downtime is having on Sony, PS3, PSN and SOE.
Another major change is the general customer satisfaction and gamers views towards Sony. Edges source said “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.”
So as you can see it seems that despite so many PS3 fans saying that they won’t switch sides, some have already given up and in an effort to get their online fix have switched to the Xbox 360. News that Microsoft will be chuffed to bits reading no doubt.