Are you the average PlayStation Network user?

Got yourself a PlayStation 3 or PS3 Slim yet? If so, it’s likely you’ll be using the PlayStation Network at some stage. It’s likely you’ll be fitting within the demographic profile of the average PSN user too...

Nobody likes to be categorised, right? Pah! Too bad – the marketing depts. of mega corporations such as Sony just love to parcel up their audiences into neat categories, highlighting the age, gender, spending habits and lifestyle choices of each one. And all so that they can know you better than you know yourselves. Oh, and sell you loads more stuff, of course.

Okay, Eric Lempel is the director of operations for PSN at Sony USA. During a recent chat with Videobusiness.com he let slip a few interesting factoids. For instance, did you know that the PlayStation Network has 12.5 million registered users? Us neither, but that’s pretty good going, eh?

Perhaps more interesting is the picture of the average PSN user. By Lempel’s account he is around 28 years old and sits comfortably within the middle-higher income earning range. These PSN-playing Joes (note: not Josephines) are smarter than the regular Shmoes on the street too; a large number possessing graduate degrees.

Well, that’s us excluded on pretty much every level - how about you? But fear not if you’re feeling left out of the picture – Lempel does reveal that things are slowly changing since PSN functionality has expanded. Usage stats for the video download service indicate that a growing number of – gasp – women might be using the service. Either that or 28 year-old, educated geezers have got girlier tastes than first thought.

It’s all good stuff, and we’re sure Microsoft will be especially keen to compare their own demographic data. Most intriguing, though, is the overwhelming male bias – Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo go to great lengths to boast about the mixed sex and age profile of their audiences. That makes great copy and points the way to a shiny egalitarian future for games, but it sounds like Sony at least might have been overstating things. 

Blokes with a bit of cash in their pockets play games. Blimey, who knew...!