Sony May Charge For PlayStation Network 212
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.
When Hell freezes over... (Score:5, Interesting)
Exactly. (Score:5, Interesting)
I bought the PS3 recently, my first console since the original nintendo. The lowered price, Uncharted 2, and the free ps3 online were the top deciding factors on which console to buy, in that order.
If they started charging now. Wow. That would factor in *hugely* in my decision on what to purchase in the future.
IT makes sense to align costs and revenues (Score:3, Interesting)
Running the PSN network must cost big money. It kinda makes sense to have subscriptions to cover those recurring costs, instead of counting on games revenues, which are one-off, to offset them.
I'm not saying it's nice or a good think for customers, just that it is logical. Maybe game prices can go down now that games don't have to pay for the network costs, and people can choose cheaper standalone play or pay for network play if the wish.
And people ask me why I don't play consoles (Score:3, Interesting)
At least not multiplayer.
And it's not even so much that I have troubles using the console controllers for FPS games. It's simply that something like this isn't easy to enforce in the PC world. If anything, the maker of a certain game can enforce a "pay to play multiplayer" rule, which would basically mean for me that I can't play this game (since I won't pay to play just another FPS game online when there's a lot that are offered free), it would not mean that the platform becomes worthless altogether.
Wouldn't be worth it. (Score:4, Interesting)
One of the major advantages that PSN has over Xbox is the fact that the online play is free.
I actually don't play games online a lot, but it's nice that it's there, so that I can dip in and out of it. It came in VERY handy during Demon's Souls.
What would be better is if the online play remained free and Sony offered a subscription model that allowed players access to game and movie rentals.
What if, for £5 per month, you could rent one PSN game and a couple of movies? Once you'd finished playing the game, you could relinquish your "lease" on it and download another. Something like this would likely have saved the Calling All Cars servers, which were shut down because no one was playing the game!
There are lots of games on PSN that I would play, but given that they cost about £10, are non-refundable and may actually turn out to be crap, I can't justify the risk.
The movie rental feature would be a great incentive, too. PSN offers a hell of a lot of movies to rent, but given that you can actually BUY a physical copy for less (Aliens: £3 on DVD; £6.99!!!! on PSN), it's not worth it.
Also, PSN needs to make renting movies the priority over selling-to-own. There are many films on there that I would much prefer to rent than buy.
Who's hosting the Game? Sony or Publisher/Dev? (Score:5, Interesting)
I have no issue with paying for PSN as long as the price is reasonable. I paid for XBox Live for years, before I got rid of my XBox. $60/yr is perfect, $5/mo. That's $5m per month with 1m users (random user number). I couldn't see servers, bandwidth, datacenter, licensing, and power costs being beyond $60m per year, but then again, IANA MMO SysAd. Any more than $60, and it will fail. Maybe they could get away with a $100/yr price if they included a full Skype client, with video...maybe.
Reasonable price & improved functionality (Score:2, Interesting)
Not working in my country anyways (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:When Hell freezes over... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd go further - such move would be so unbelievably stupid that I can't help but suspect there's something else at play here.
Spreading such rumors and causing a bit of an "outrage"...which has a "side effect" of spreading the message that Sony network service is free, while MS one is not?
If I have to pay... (Score:2, Interesting)
The service is cr*p (with SF4 for example is full of lag cheaters and they don't get banned), movies you can buy cost a lot as well (plus on a side note if I downaload 10 of them I exceed my 100 GB monthly max limit on my ultra-in-theory-unlimited BT account - I discovered that because of this...sigh) and are badly compressed.
And they even think to start charging people?
This is the good time I might stop buying any SONY product in future.
Cheers,
I wont buy a PS3 until PSN is subscription based. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Exactly. (Score:3, Interesting)
You can debate whether or not the $50 dollars is a good deal or not, or whether or not it's a trivial cost. If you intend to own a console for six years before upgrading; the Xbox live fees have added $300 dollars to the TCO of the Xbox360.
That may or may not be a problem for you. You might argue that the Xbox Live gives you better online features that justify the additional cost.
That's why people consider different consoles, compare them, and ultimately decide on whichever console is a good fit.
Regardless of how you feel about the $50 dollars; I think we can all agree that whenever console producers change the rules, we (the customers) stand to get hurt.
It might not have been the deciding factor for you; but it could have been for someone else. Changing the rules of the purchase after the fact is always going to introduce potential problems.
Similarly, if Microsoft were to discontinue Xbox Live - a lot of people who purchased the Xbox *because* of that service are going to be shafted.
One of the biggest reasons I went with a PS3 was not wanting to pay another fee to play a game I already paid for, on the internet (access to which I already pay for).