85% PS3 Gamers Online: Only 60% Xbox 360 Gamers?

Being free comes with certain advantages. Approximately 85% of PlayStation 3 gamers are online, in comparison to only 60% of Xbox 360 gamers.*

That's according to our final stats from Sony's CES conference. Kaz Hirai announced that there are 17 million active accounts on the PlayStation network, with 330 million pieces of content downloaded. Apparently 2.1 million PSN accounts were added in the last month alone.

Microsoft already revealed that its praised Xbox Live service now has 17 million active members. Despite having 28 million consoles in homes* this is the same amount of members online as Sony's PlayStation Network.

That's the advantage of being free and as shown by the amount of money made via PlayStation Home goods already, Sony can still be profitable.

*According to sale through numbers released by Microsoft.

[UPDATE] - We are aware that PSN users have multiple accounts, in order to download content from regional stores, thus the percentages depend on Sony's methodology of gathering the statistics. If PSP users are also included, the percentage will be significantly reduced.