If you've been following all the talk surrounding potential subscription fees for the PlayStation Network, then this is a very hot story indeed. A brand new market survey has revealed Sony's ideas for the seemingly inevitable premium subscription, and some of the ideas are shockingly good, with a range of benefits that may be worth a fee after all.
Such considerations include one-hour game trials, exclusive in-game content and, most intriguing of all, unrestricted access to the PSOne Classics and Minis store, allowing subscribers to get whatever PSOne games they like for no additional charge. The long-awaited cross-game chat has also been named as a potential premium service, available only to subscribers.
Other bonuses under consideration include music sharing, loyalty rewards, discounts, a music service and much, much more. Three subscription models have been revealed, costing $69.99 a year, with a cheaper one running for $29.99 a year.
None of this is set in stone, and is merely stuff that Sony is considering. However, there is some promising potential here that could lead to a true premium service, unlike Xbox Live, which merely gives the illusion of premium content by offering things that should be free in the first place. Check out the survey for all of Sony's ideas and let us know if any of it's worth paying for in your estimation.
Contest:
11:20 AM on 12.18.2009
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He meant that Sony did nothing to discourage cheaters, MS banned the glichters.
Aaand.. Cloud game storage is a great idea IMO.
On the rest of it... I'd probably opt for a subscription... particularly for the one hour game trials.
Naw just kidding.
As for people talking about the MW2 fiasco. In Sony's defense the leader boards have been cleaned up for about a week now. And that patch came out, also lag is not really much of an issue.
I think this is a great move by Sony. I hope that this forces MS to follow suit. I am personally a fan of the Xbox 360, but if a friend asked me what to buy right now, I would have to recommend the PS3 because it is a better deal.
Assuming on the positive side for the vague features: Guaranteed beta access to whatever I want, one hour demos of any title, the ability to share demos with friends, discounts, exclusive content and unlimited access to themes, ps1 and minis... this is what I call a subscription service.
So, what, 30 extra dollars a year might get me PSOne Classics for free, which I'll agree might make it worthwhile if they do it. But wading through a sea of DRM seems likely. Just look at XBLA/GoD games on the 360. But if that feature isn't in there, then this is far too expensive. Everything else is included in my XBL subscription, which is far more useful to me.
Loyalty rewards would be interesting too.
tbh though if I had a PS3 to go along with my 360, I wouldn't pay a fee for both. Ignoring which friends I have on which console though what's mentioned there for the PS3 would probably win out. :)
And it only took them, what, nearly a decade to catch on?
THIS is the kind of shit you charge a subscription for, not online gaming.
Though I'd like to know what exactly they mean by "exclusive in-game content"...
Cloud storage seems huge.. it could go horribly wrong or just perfect, you must say that Sony seems to thin this seriously and hopefully doesn't rush stuff.
The part that really is interesting is free gameplay which is essentially a demo. To be honest it would have to be a lot more than the 3-4 a week they currently have which could mean they kill the other demos and offer it as a premium. That would be stupid! I am a big fan of demo's. I have bought games I never would have considered otherwise and bailed on a few I thought I'd like.
I'd probably never log into PSN if it didn't have demos and I will not pay for them.
They are going to some degree copy Xbox Live and I don't care for that.
I buy my games on a disc, when they stop doing that I will still buy games but significantly fewer games.
Also the issue with the HDD, if you buy it, it's only for that one HDD so you're screwed if you upgrade. No thanks!
Seriously, I wonder if that will be a concern and they'll do something to link premium downloads to premium membership or if they'll just figure enough people will stick with it.
I mean, Sony talks a lot, charges a lot, promise the moon, and delivers NOTHING. When the PS3 can't even play the standard start-up jingle anymore... information like this just goes in one ear and out the other.
What are Trophy Alerts? If it's an alert when a friend gets a trophy, I do no see that as a value for my money. Netflix access without a disc also seems kind of weird as a paid service, since the disc is free in the first place. Maybe there's money to be made on laziness.
I do wonder what the difference between online play and User-to-user Challenges is.
Also, what is cloud storage for games? Isn't that called my download list on PSN? I would most likely need the entire game on my local hard drive to play effectively, so storing it in the cloud when I'm not using it seems silly. Maybe the game will get streamed to users instead. Imagine streaming the game engine and regular artifacts for FFVIII immediately. Then stream the FMV sequences. Then, it's random encounter time. Haven't encountered this enemy? Stream it too. Yuck!
Some of the features that do sound neat are the beta games, discounts, Mini/PSOne subscriptions (I'd buy mine to keep, but it does provide an actual value added for people that don't care to buy theirs). I also like the one hour game trials, since so many games don't come with demos. Hopefully, that doesn't kill demos. Online music and video service is also a really good fit for PSN.
That's my initial impressions of that list.
It's an interesting idea, I just foresee it being a DRM nightmare.