A report today from video game news site Edge suggests the now three-week long PlayStation Network outage is to blame for a marked increase in PlayStation 3 trade-ins in Europe.
The site contacted several retail outlets across the country who related that consumers frustrated with the inability to play some games online have reached a breaking point, trading in their PS3s for Xbox 360s.
One anonymous store manager said that PS3 trade-ins remained static in the days following the massive data breach, but slowly increased "over 200%" in the past two weeks. He also stated that around half of the customers trading in PS3s opted to replace them with a system that offers working online play: the Xbox 360.
Two other sources echoed the statement, both adding that gamers who spent significant time in the virtual battlefields of online multiplayer shooters were chief among those seemingly tired of waiting on Sony to re-launch the compromised service.
One Belgian retailer told Edge some customers were "bringing in PS3s together with all their games" just to get their "Call of Duty: Black Ops" fix.
The latest entry in the popular series has sold over 20 million units to date globally - eight million of which are in PS3 owners' homes. The title's UK release earned publisher Activision £400 million in the first few days alone and continues to chart in the country.
MyCE reached out to GameStop, one of the largest video game retailers in the U.S., to find out if the corporation's stores were experiencing a similar trend. We have yet to hear back from them.
One manager speaking on the condition of anonymity told MyCE that he hadn't noticed any substantial increase in PS3 trade-ins at his store despite admitting he "thought it would happen." Our source also claimed more gamers who owned both PS3 and Xbox 360 consoles but traditionally bought multi-platform software for the former were now choosing the latter.
Consumers aren't the only ones frustrated with the ongoing outage, however. Video game companies that rely on the PSN to sell online content such as downloadable expansion packs are losing money each day the service remains down.
Christian Svensson, Capcom's Senior Vice President, declared his company was losing "hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars in revenue," implying that future projects by the Japan-based developer could be directly affected as a result.
Activision executives were similarly concerned during an earnings call this week. Eric Hirshberg, the company's publishing chief, said he would like to see PSN return "as soon as possible" - and for good reason: the company plans to bring the "Escalation" map pack for "Call of Duty: Black Ops" to the PS3 soon.
Released on May 3rd for the Xbox 360 thanks to a timed exclusivity deal with Microsoft, a date for "Escalation"'s PS3 launch is now up in the air thanks to the PSN hacking.
PSN was supposed to be available (at least in part) last week, but recent updates suggest it could take all month.
Have you traded in your PS3 due to the Sony/PSN security breach? Or are you weathering the storm? Let us know in the comment section.
