Despite the fact that the PlayStation 3 was released 17 years ago (which was very expensive at the time, but was also technologically revolutionary due to the Cell processor…), we know from leaked documents from the Insomniac Games ransomware attack that Recently the number of active users was still in seven figures…
PlayStation LifeStyle reported on the PlayStation 3's user base, which received two smaller models during its lifetime (at the same time the PS3's success began to falter, as the console got off to a rocky start, to put it mildly). From Uncharted to The Last of Us, many IPs have been released on this console, and even though the PlayStation 4 was released over a decade ago, there are still games that were only released for the PS3, and fans are very happy that they will welcome them. New port (just one example: Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots).
Nothing indicates the success of the PlayStation 3 better than the fact that according to Insomniac Games' internal data, between December 2022 and February 2023, the console had between 1.9 and 2.3 million monthly active users! This is probably because many PS3 titles are not available on modern platforms (similar to MGS4…) and many other games can only be played from the cloud via PlayStation Plus Premium, as there is still no local PS3 emulation, although… Having a PlayStation 5 should be able to.
The number of PlayStation Network users on PlayStation 4 during the same period reached 71.5 million, while by February, PlayStation 5 had amassed 37.1 million, according to the leak. The latter result is exceptionally good, because in the first two years of the PlayStation 5, the console was not easy to obtain due to a lack of stock. However, it's puzzling how many people were playing on PlayStation 3 even in February of this year, even though it's not easy to find a new one (and it's easy to use).
So Sony might want to think about why this is the case. Perhaps not everyone made this decision for financial reasons.
source: GameRant
