It's time for the old "PSN charges" debate to rear its ugly head. The last time we left off, it became pretty clear that Sony was strongly considering a premium service on the PlayStation Network, something that would offer paying customers a little extra over the current free package. Now, Sony has outright stated that charges are being considered.
"It's been our philosophy not to charge for it from launch up until now, but Kaz recently went on the record as saying that's something we're looking at," says Sony's Peter Dille. "I can confirm that as well. That's something that we're actively thinking about. What's the best way to approach that if we were to do that? You know, no announcements at this point in time, but it's something we're thinking about."
At this stage, I'd say it's an inevitability. I said years ago that Sony would charge for PSN as soon as it felt it could do so, and here we are. Of course, the gaming side should always be free, and Sony has said so itself. We'll just have to sit tight and see what Sony believes our money should get us.
End Bosses: Sony's Peter Dille [IGN]
Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
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Contest:
4:30 PM on 02.03.2010
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But if they charge for the core things we have now for free, they might just lose a customer.
Free PS1, mini's themes, cloud storage, etc...all great.
here is hoping though they don't charge for XGC. At least give one on one free and you can make group part of the paid package.
Besides, the proposed subscription benefits were well above any sort of regular online features. Automatic inclusion in game betas, store discounts, playing the first hour of retail games for free and unlimited access to PS1 and PSN games? Give me online play and cross game chat for free and I'll gladly pay for all the awesome extra stuff.
It's Count Orlock (Max Schreck) from the 1922 German vampire film, Nosferatu.
Excellent movie BTW.
however if they take away too much of what should be at the core ( let's just say making people pay for party chat would disjoint the player base somewhat) and forget why psn popular in the first place (give paying people extra but don't divide the player base with features) this is going to blow up in their face and undo all their hard work so far.
Basically they can't get too greedy with features and pricing.
and @ cahuatijo
thanks for looking out for large corporations bottomline, i'm sure they appreciate it.
/in b4 Sonyboi flaming
//also, in b4 RROD
/That is my only contribution to this article.
@Czech Monster
Are you sure you're in the right place? This was a totally peaceful thread until you got here.
Just for you, Sony has a special access fee. Just cope up 899.99 per year, you can have all you can play PS1 games.
Me? I will just pass.
And yes, baseline will be free just like going to web site is free as long as you pay for your baseline cable/dsl/phone/and fios.
Sony should seriously charge for people who are willing to pay for contents. Don't stop at 49.99 bull crap. Just charge them like 1000 bux and recoup some money from them sony fan boys and girls.
Microsoft seriously needs to get rid of gold membership restriction for Netflix. It makes a lot of sense, indeed.
you always try to, and might i add, forcing to show negativity towards the PS3..and sometimes subtle way of pointing out Sony's flaws (Modern Warfare 2 glitch comes to mind)
it doesnt take a genius to realize this..just look at the past Jim articles
really Jim? are you that much big of a PS3 detractor?
anyways back to the story..
i saw some of the so called details of the paid subscription for the PSN few months ago..i dont mind paying a few moolahs if i would get a few extras like there was a package there that says unlimited (?) PS1 games and extra movies, exclusive demo games, etc..
i dont mind that, important thing is that it is STILL TO FREE TO PLAY ONLINE..yay!
Maybe he's amused at how quickly everyone gets up in arms about this stuff and how quickly it devolves into a RRoD vs this and that.
Why do people take this stuff so personally? If you have a problem with Jims articles, heres a hint - don't read them.
give microsoft a break! new silly news are around the corner
He is a Sony fan, but the problem is all of he other fans taint their diapers with a barrel of fecal substance and call him a biased negaton
Oh no I will get a demo a week later than everyone else. Whatever will I do?
It's not because "LOL I'm a 360 fanboy," it's because I only have single-player games on my PS3, I don't have a headset, and all the people on my PS3 friendlist have a 360 and a Gold sub, so we do party chat and play online on that console.
For me, the only thing that would make me pay for PSN is Microsoft bowing out of the console race and shutting down XBL.
(though I don't think that cross game chat should be regarded as a "premium service" until their QA department ensures that games that are supposed to have voice chat actually do have working voice chat and not the fail that was voice for Sacred 2 and Battlefield 43).
As soon as they start charging for online gaming, I'm done. I'll be finding a new home for my PS3, and I'll be using that money to upgrade my computer.
@ Saborlas
If the money was spent on reliable servers, that'd be one thing. They aren't. The vast majority of Xbox 360 games are Peer-To-Peer - thus, it's the user supplying the bandwidth, not Microsoft.
yup, just like the e3 2005 ps3 features and backwards compatibility
ho yes, sony says a lot of things themselves the things they says
Kaz Hirai: WTF!?!?! Quick, get me Kutaragi.
Kutaragi: We'll ease them into paying for the service. It's Playstation!! It
could be a rock with our brand on it and it would sell.
Kaz Hirai: Maybe Microsoft was right about a subscription fee.
Underling: I think I have to renew my gold account next week.
Kaz Hirai: Buy you work for us.
Underling: But my friends play on LIVE.
Kaz Hirai: Maybe, we can get away with this. Hell, we're SONY!! They'll beg us for it.
Kutaragi: You still can't touch my PS3 controller though.
If they go the way of XBL...I guess I'll be using my Wii a lot more.
Truer words have never been spoken, that doesn't make this any less another one of Sony's boneheaded decisions, i mean they are just beginning to crawl out of the hole they have been for the last 3 years and they are already doing things that might push them back in.
PS3 online is already server based, at least with First-Party Games. It varies from game to game, basically.
Best regards, Anna, CEO of metasan iscsi and itune