Sony May Charge For PlayStation Network

In an interview with IGN, Sony's VP of marketing, Peter Dille, responded to a question about the PlayStation Network by saying that the company is considering charging for the service. He said, "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. 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." This follows news of a customer survey from last month that listed possibilities for subscription-based PSN features.

Re:IT makes sense to align costs and revenues

[Brianech]

the PSN already charges for content. It charges the PUBLISHER. Companies have to pay 16cents a gigabyte of content downloaded (demos included).

Re:Who's hosting the Game? Sony or Publisher/Dev?

[emanem]

The SONY PSN I think is mostly used to act as a STUN [wikipedia.org] starter, but then games are mostly hosted locally, so they save bandwidth.
At least I think this is true for games like SF4, where apparently they don't/can't do anything for cheaters because they can't (read don't give a sh*t) spot them...
But this is my guess.
Cheers,

Re:Who's hosting the Game? Sony or Publisher/Dev?

[DrXym]

Playstation Home? Charge for it.

Home is festooned with adverts, sponsored zones and as you say trinkets for $$$. It's already commercialized enough and charging for it would be stupid.

Personally I think Sony have plenty of means of keeping online free and making money. They're already doing lots of them - pushing PSN, selling / renting videos, premium avatars & themes, advertising, qore etc. They could add to that model with IPTV, game rentals (hourly, daily, weekly, monthly etc.), streaming music & video, network storage & game load/saves etc. There is no reason that they should have to charge for any functionality that the PS3 already offers.

Mmm Yummy FUD!

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't all the info related to PSN going paid service been that the current service would remain free but all the new toys would be part of a pay service? I know everyone here like to hate on the PS3 but it's kind of pathetic.

Re:They'd be stupid not to

[auLucifer]

I've heard that with the slim ps3 sony are no longer loss leading. Can I see a reference for the statement that they still are?

Re:Exactly.

[hedwards]

Because previous versions of the PS3 had it as a way of artificially increasing the catalog size. And they didn't really advertise the crippling of the hardware on the box either. Sure you could find the information if you looked for it, but you should be able to assume that a console can do anything that the other versions can. There shouldn't be any need to research a particular revision because the manufacturer was dickish enough to change the specs.

From a gaming perspective the various gameboys wer completely compatible as were the GBA and GBA SP.

For "Premium" features, not the base stuff!!!!

[Dr. Manhattan]

The charges would be for new and extra features. Not what it already does.

http://www.gamepro.com/article/news/213014/premium-psn-service-planned-wont-affect-online-gaming/ [gamepro.com]

"Sony is considering adding a subscription-based version of the PlayStation Network, but the company denies that it will charge customers to play games online."

http://www.next-gen.biz/news/sony-may-introduce-psn-subscription-model [next-gen.biz]

"Especially in the online area, we are studying the possibility of introducing a subscription model, offering premium content and services, in addition to the current free services." (Emphasis added.)

Re:Exactly.

[metamatic]

Yes, it upscales. It also provides you with 1:1 pixel mapping via HDMI rather than an analog video signal. In some cases you get better texture rendering.

That said, for some games I prefer the PS2's output, so I kept mine.

Re:They'd be stupid not to

[hldn]

LOSING. LOSING. LOSING.

Re:Exactly.

[duguk]

That's part of what I like about the Play station as opposed to Nintendo. One console plays all my games. I have three different Nintendo systems for each set of games I have.

You do know the Wii plays GameCube games, right? You can't really include the DS or Gameboy since they're portables, so I'm guessing you've got a SNES and a N64? =)

Re:They'd be stupid not to

[goose-incarnated]

My eyes are bleeding from your fractured spelling... You can spell "loss" correctly but not "losing"? "Braking even"? Really?