Out for just over a year, Sony’s social networking initiative PlayStation Home has had its critics. The service has been gradually growing in features, but many have argued that its audience isn’t worth shouting about. Sony is arguing the contrary; PlayStation Home is actually booming.

PlayStation Home has been available to PlayStation 3 gamers for fifteen months now, and the service’s director Jack Buser has claimed that those months have been very successful. Of course, it’s his job to sell the service to advertisers, developers and consumers, and with reports of advertisers jumping ship, he’s got a tough job convincing.

At a GDC presentation, Buser has used statistics to demonstrate the success of PlayStation Home, with the service now enjoying 12 million users, with 85 per cent of those returning.

IGN reports that there were 6 million users in June 2009, with 10 million in December 2009 and 12 million today. Each visitor also on average spends an hour using the service. So it’s not all doom and gloom for PlayStation Home, even though we’d like to see a number of improvements.