PlayStation Network Premium

[JanusStorm]

Undoubtedly one of Sony’s most prominent strengths in comparison to the Xbox 360 is its free online gaming service the PlayStation Network. Unlike the 360, which can only be played online by paying a monthly/yearly subscription fee, anyone with an internet connection can go online and play any PlayStation 3 game to their heart’s content right out of the box. While these halcyon days of free online gaming on the PS3 aren’t going anywhere in the near future, a premium service is in the works which will offer expanded features to gamers willing to ante up for the service.

With a free service firmly entrenched, you can bet that Sony is well aware that their premium service will have to offer something worthwhile for gamers to take the plunge and buy into it. Unlike Xbox Live, which gamers are all but forced to pay for if they want to play online, no one will be forcing gamers to pay for these premium features. Sony is busily preparing a large collection of new features which they hope will make purchasing them a no-brainer for gamers.

While none of these features have been confirmed by Sony, these are just some of the speculated features which will be available when the service launches:

- Extended Console Warranty

Fairly self explanatory, while subscribed to the service, your console warranty would be extended.

- Access to Beta Games

- Early Access to All Store Content

- Member Demo Sharing of Full Game

This would allow you to send unique game demos to your friends, which may otherwise not even be available in such a form.

- Cross-game Voice Chat Access

Chat with your friends no matter what you and they are doing on your PS3’s at the time.

- Token Wagering

Put your tokens on the line during challenges against other gamers. Tokens could be used to purchase items from the PlayStation Store.

- Free Access to PSOne Classics, PSP Minis, and PS3/PSP Themes

- Discounts on Store Content

- Member Only In-game Content

Perhaps the most interesting feature speculated, discussed further below.

- Cloud Storage Space for Games

- Facebook Connectivity

For all you Facebook users who already flood your page with Farmville and Mafia Wars updates.

As mentioned, the most interesting feature of all would be the addition of new content to games which would only be unlocked through the premium service. This could be a potentially divisive issue, as games in and of themselves are not cheap, and holding back features from them could be seen as holding a gun to gamers’ heads.

You’d basically be paying a lump sum upfront for access to DLC, without actually knowing which games may get this bonus content until near its release, and without even knowing whether or not any games you may purchase in the future will have bonus content or not. With DLC itself already dividing gamers between those who feel like they’re being nickel-and-dimed, and those who love the extra content, this could divide them yet further. I generally fall in the former camp, as paying $7 for a one hour mission, or $15 for some maps, just doesn’t tickle my fancy.

Of course the biggest question would have to be, how much would this service cost? Most estimates have put it in the range of Xbox Live’s service, possibly slightly cheaper. Estimates have ranged anywhere from $20-$60 per year. Considering all the features that this service would add, it seems like a fair enough price.

Given some of the features mentioned above, which amount to about half of the possible features under consideration, could you see yourself paying $50 a year for this premium service? What do you think about developers adding in bonus content to their games that can only be unlocked by being a premium member?

[Unregistered]

Xbox 360 is better :d
no, it's not.

[Henry]

I think you are missing the point, everything that is free now will remain free. The subscription service will add to the current free service for a fee and is completely optional.

[KenB]

I've played eq and I switched over to eq2 on the roll out. I would probably be sick if I really added up all the money I've spent over the years. Sony of course keeps coming up with new and sometimes unscroupolus ways of trying to make an extra buck for nothing. The worse of them is their charity drives. Buy this for $5 and well send $10 to a charity! When you read the fine print it's up to $50k. Well eq 2 has in the neighborhood of half a million players so making the 5,000 sales is pretty much a given. The next month They show them giving a check to the charity bragging that eq2 palyers raised the money in under 2 days! But the message was in the MOTD for an entire week. Just how many sales did you make that week and what about the rest of the money? If youre going to do charity take notice of Blizzard. They ran a buy this and we'll give the money to Make a Wish Foundation. 2 months later they handed them a check for $1.1 million!

Ok what does this have to do with a PS3 network? You're absoluty correct, NOTHING! But with my dealing with Sony over the years they continusouly tried to get you to pay extra for something your all ready have or has no value. I'm not a hard core gamer but if works and makes matchmaking better and such it would be worth something.

Okay Sony heres my offer. $2 a month or $20 if you pay for the year up front. Take it or leave it. In the mean time get your hands out of my wallet and off of my tits. They're both dry.

[JanusStorm]

@Ken - Just seems to be the way the industry is going. We just had EA announce that people who buy used copies of a game won't have access to the online modes unless they spend $10 to buy a new access code.

Again, you can look at it that if you buy games new (which I usually do), it doesn't affect you. But it's still going to be an extra fee for many gamers. If companies were as ingenious with their game design as they seem to be in nickle and dime-ing their consumers, they wouldn't need to come up with all these tricks to pull in cash, they'd be selling millions of copies of every game.

@Henry - Don't get me wrong, I wasn't being overly critical of Sony doing this.

But just to play Devil's Advocate, you have to figure that in the natural progression of making their service better, at least some of these features would've been included as part of free updates. They'll now be held back instead and only offered to premium consumers. Same with the game features, which would've been included for everyone before this development, but will now only be available to premium members.

So the free gamers will lose out in the long run.

[Unregistered]

i'd pay around 30 4 those features and a few more but ea makin upay 10 4 new access code is retarded all around i just want the ps4 to be released xD

[GUEST]

i would buy in only if the benefits are worth while and the price is reasonable but if best feature is extended warranty and we have to pay up like $50 a yr don't really see the point

[shaycorl]

You are defiantly missing out some points here it will be awarded totally free to consumers or even thought if they add some subscription that would be on a lower terms and fees. So shouldn't really be much worried about this.

[Txgirl]

psn is already free they're jus adding 2 the greatness, an 2 all the whinners u need to read his post 1st, free out of the box network wont be leaving in the near future, extended warranties Beta access cross talk n stuff well worth 60+ a year an thats not even a month which is WAY WORSE but i heard somthing about netfliks to ....or was that jus a rumor any whoo i love what you guys r doing

[Henry]

So Playstation Plus, the official name for the premium service offered by Sony does not offer as much as people expected.
What you get for $50 or £30 a year

- Once a month you will get 1 PSOne Classic game, 2 minis and 1 PSN game yours to play forever.*

- A 1 hour full game trial. Basically you download the full game which has a 1 hour restriction on it. To own the game to play after that 1 hour you will have to buy the unlock key.

- Automatic downloads. You set a time for your PS3 to turn on and check for updates to the OS, games and applications so that when you use them it doesn't have to download any updates before you play.

For more information visit http://uk.playstation.com/playstationplus/


Oh and that * up above, If you cancel your subscription or don't re-new it all those free games will become unplayable until you re-subscribe to Playstation Plus