Adult content provider SugarInstant has revealed that the PlayStation Network outage of early 2016 resulted in a dramatic increase in the consumption of adult material among PlayStation gamers.
To be specific, the uptake of adult entertainment content among PlayStation consoles shot up 20 percent, while the use of porn across consoles in general rose by 13.4 percent. The data covers the 10-hour period that Sony’s PSN service was pulled offline on January 4.
Back in 2014, the notorious hacking group Lizard Squad claimed responsibility for pulling PSN offline during the Christmas holiday season. On the day of the group’s attack, the use of use of porn jumped by 38 percent. Furthermore, the infamous 2011 PSN outage resulted in SugarInstant recording an 80 percent leap among new PlayStation users.
In related news, PornHub recently confirmed that PlayStation users have pulled ahead of Xbox gamers in using their console’s browser to access adult content. During its end of year report, the site found that PlayStation users now represent 46.9 percent of all console owners that access the site’s content. Second place now goes to Xbox gamers, who make up 37.9 percent.
This represents a strike contrast to 2014, as Xbox was originally the dominant platform for accessing porn. For last year however, PlayStation rose 17.5 percent to overtake its lead rival, with Xbox dropping 17.2 percent. During the last-generation console cycle, PS3 was the lead gaming platform in regards to PornHub traffic.
Amusingly, PornHub said last year that Fallout 4 contributed to a 10 percent drop in traffic during the game’s release.