Sony Interactive Entertainment hosted a panel at CEDEC (basically the Japanese GDC), in which Global Developer Technology Department Manager Kenjo Akiyama provided some interesting details on the habits of PS5 and PS4 users.
The data focuses on engagement with free-to-play games, online multiplayer, physical versus digital purchases, DLC, trophy acquisition, PlayStation VR utilization, and more.
We start with a look at the ratio of “Active Devices” summing both PS4 and PS5. The definition of “active device” means a console that has played at least a game in each given month between April 2021 and June 2022.
We notice that summing bot consoles it’s quite stable in all regions, but Akiyama-san mentioned that it’s increasing at a steady pace in favor of PS5 as players make the switch to PS5.
Image Source: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Next, we look at the ratio of active devices that engage in free-to-play games. The first graph focuses on PS4 consoles broken down by region, the second on PS5 consoles broken down by region, and the third compares PS4 and PS5.
It appears that PS4 users engage in F2P games more than PS5 users, and Asian players aren’t as interested in this category of games compared to other regions.
Image Source: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Next is online multiplayer, with American and European PlayStation users more engaged than their Japanese and Asian counterparts, while PS5 users are more active than PS4 users.
Image Source: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Next, we take a look at average play time per user on both platforms combined. The first graph focuses on all games, with a mention that it’s higher on PS5 than on PS4 on all regions.
The second graph focuses on free-to-play games, showing that Japanese gamers actually spend the longest on average on this kind of game.
The third graph focuses on average play time for online multiplayer games, with the US and Europe at the top.
Image Source: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Next, we take a look at a breakdown of the average play time for each type of games (F2P, Online multiplayer, and “other”) in June 2022.
Japan has the highest value for free-to-play games, while Asia has the highest value for “other” games.
Image Source: Sony Interactive Entertainment
We then take a look at the ratio between digital purchases and disk purchases. PS5 and PS4 are aggregated together for this metric.
Japanese players appear to purchase the most physical copies, while US players are at the bottom.
Image Source: Sony Interactive Entertainment
The next set of graphs focuses Digital, DLC, and in-game purchases broken by region and platform.
The first shows purchases on the PlayStation Store including both full games and additional content.
The second shows the average amount spent per active device including both full games and additional content.
The third graph shows the ratio of users that purchase DLC and entitlements (excluding full games).
The fourth graph shows the expenses for DLC and entitlements purchases.
The fifth focuses on the expense per active device for DLC and entitlements.
The sixth focuses on the total amount of purchases for DLC and entitlements on the PlayStation Store.
Seventh showcases the percentage of users that spend money on F2P games.
Image Source: Sony Interactive Entertainment
The following graph shows the use of PlayStation VR on PS5, which is gradually increasing, showing that PlayStation VR users are shifting from PS4 and PS5.
Image Source: Sony Interactive Entertainment
We then take a look at trophies.
The first table of the first slide shows the average trophy acquisition rate per game broken down by region. The second table shows the ranking of each region. Each row represents one of the most-player games on PlayStation.
The second slide shows the number of times each region ranked in each position and the number of times it ranked first.
Japanese players tend to stick to one game for a long time, and as such, to get more trophies.
Things change in the third slide that shows only Platinum Trophies, with Asia and Europe at the top of the completionist regions (albeit there’s a lot of variance within Europe).
The fourth slide shows the trophy collection completion ratio per PlayStation Network account between 0% and 100% broken down by region.
Image Source: Sony Interactive Entertainment
The first slide below shows the average number of games per user played in the past year (with PS5 and PS4 combined). The US is at the top with 10.7 games, while Japan is at the bottom with 5.9.
The second is the average hours spent per game broken down by region. Obviously, Japanese players tend to stick to the same game a lot longer than users in other regions.
The third slide shows the average play time over the last 6 months for PS4 and PS5 users, showing that users who move to PS5 also tend to play longer.
Image Source: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Lastly, we see the number of DualShock 4 and DualSense controllers paired on average with each console. The vast majority of users pair 2 controllers, followed by one.
Image Source: Sony Interactive Entertainment
You can watch the full talk below.