Hi everyone,

My name is Angela Madronero and I’m the European PlayStation Store Manager. For a while now, we’ve seen a number of recurring questions about the PlayStation Store appearing on the blog. Many of the questions can’t be covered in the weekly PlayStation Store update; therefore, I wanted to take this opportunity to respond to some of the most frequently asked questions.

How has the European PlayStation Store grown since its launch? Are there any plans to increase the reach of the store further?

The first thing to say is that the “European” PlayStation Store is also available in non-European countries. Basically, the countries that make up the SCEE region (which historically operated the PAL TV system) all come under the banner of Europe. For the purposes of this blog I’ll continue to call it the European Store, which operates alongside our sister stores in servicing American, Japanese and Asian markets.

We have 29 stores across 25 countries, which require the use of 13 currencies and 8 languages. As you can imagine, it takes a significant amount of coordination and operational support to maintain our existing stores; however, our current list of countries is by no means final. We are definitely interested in further geographic expansion of the PlayStation Store.

The PlayStation Store is a commercial enterprise; therefore, we need to prioritise the roll-out of additional stores by reviewing a country’s PLAYSTATION 3 installed base, broadband penetration and e-commerce environment. These reviews are completed on a case-by-case basis. Ultimately, the roll-out of additional countries needs to make commercial sense.

What improvements have been made to the PlayStation Store since launch?

Those people who have been using PS Store since 2007 will have seen many changes in such a relatively short space of time. The changes are usually made in response to user comments, or to improve operational efficiency.

From a user point of view, over the course of two years we’ve:

• Re-launched the PS3 store with a significantly improved layout and design using a native PS3 technology rather than the original browser-based store. This dramatically improved the speed performance and provided a richer graphical experience. We were also able to configure the same store design to both High-definition and Standard-definition TV.
• Implemented an ‘A-Z’ search section throughout all stores.
• Rolled-out a ‘Preview Button’ for sneak peeks at content.
• Launched the PSP Store and made PSP content available via the PC (Media Go).

Our most recent updates include:

• Design refresh
• Search functionality within English language stores; roll-out across non-English language stores to follow
• Additional rotating advertising slots in order to highlight new content

(more…)

Score:

• 223 Comments 8 Replies
• Share on Twitter
• Share on Facebook