PlayStation Plus' success due to its Instant Game Collection, says PlayStation director

The introduction of the Instant Game Collection service to Sony's PlayStation Plus is the reason behind the program's significant boost in customer satisfaction, PlayStation director of digital platforms Jack Buser said in an interview with VentureBeat.

"At E3 we announced the Instant Game Collection," Buser said. "That's when we focused the value proposition of the membership on the notion that if you're a member, you have access to an instant library of games.

"That week of E3, we saw a 2-times lift of new membership sales," Buser added. "It just skyrocketed."

The idea for the Collection stemmed from research carried out by Sony regarding what players would respond well to on Plus. They game to the conclusion that "gamers want games."

"We came to that conclusion through a mountain of data, and we really landed on this idea that not only are we going to put free games on the service, but we're going to put great free games on the service," Buser said.

Buser said that PlayStation Plus will be "absolutely a killer app going into this holiday," hinting at the possibility of more publishers taking advantage of the service to raise brand awareness, like Gearbox Software did with Borderlands, during this season's massive influx of games.