Recently, Sony launched the new “My PS4 Life” web tool. It allows players to share their gameplay information with others. However, it also apparently makes it possible to draw conclusions about the player counts and sales of all PS4 titles.
Sony may have revealed the player counts of all its titles. However, this is not a PSN hack or data theft. A new web tool from Sony apparently makes it possible to read the exact player counts. And this is how it works.
This is how My PS4 Life works: On the official homepage of Sony’s My PS4 Life PS4 players can create a personal video. The video captures which games have been played and which trophies have been earned.
Players can share the video with others and also view the videos of other players.
What exactly does My PS4 Life reveal? My PS4 Life reveals specific player counts for an achievement. For example, according to My PS4 Life, 33,764 players have earned the trophy “Photo Bomber” on the PS4. This is a trophy that exists in Fallout 76.
Now, you can check the trophy itself to see what percentage of all players have reached this achievement. In the case of Fallout 76, it is 8.3%.
From these two numbers, it can easily be inferred that a total of 406,795 players must have played Fallout 76 on the PS4.
What is the problem with this? If these numbers are even somewhat accurate, it is a big problem for Sony. Many companies want to keep their player or sales figures secret from the public and the competition at all costs.
In light of these numbers, Fallout 76 appears in a very poor light. 400,000 is a small number compared to how Red Dead Redemption has nearly 6 million or Black Ops 4 has 9 million, or even flops like Mass Effect Andromeda with 2.2 million players fared compared to that.
It is certainly not in Bethesda’s interest for such numbers to further strengthen the already harsh criticism of their latest Fallout installment and provide new points for attack.
Check out the player counts yourself: After this connection was discovered, some enthusiasts set up a site that lists all the player counts discovered so far for PS4 games.
On the site gamstat.com, you can currently see 98 games along with their respective numbers. Leading the pack are GTA V (51,700,000 players) and FIFA 16-18 (28-32 million players).
How accurate is the data from My PS4 Life? That cannot be said for sure yet.
For games that have been released recently, such as in November, the data from the last weeks may not have been considered. There is no exact information on this.
Furthermore, in some cases, it is not possible to draw a conclusion about the direct sales figures. Some numbers may be misleading, as titles like Deus Ex or Destiny 2 have already been available for free to all subscribers in the context of PS Plus.
Also, used and resold games are not taken into account in these numbers.
However, for numerous games, there is indeed a direct correlation. And based on what is already known about the sales of various titles, it seems that these numbers and the calculation method are reliable.
It remains exciting to see how Sony and game publishers will respond to this.
Here we have the player counts of some games that we also cover on MeinMMO:
