Sony May Charge For PlayStation Network [Slashdot]

[DP ServBot]

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.http://games.slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rss&op=image&style=h0&sid=10/02/04/0727249 (http://games.slashdot.org/story/10/02/04/0727249/Sony-May-Charge-For-PlayStation-Network?from=rss)
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[megasdkirby]

I definitely won't pay for extra services that surely will not work for PR anyway.

Now if they did work, Sony should at least leave the current PSN "lineup" for free, and only charge for anything extra it might add that is WORTH IT.

[lagartija_nick]

I don't think this is gonna happen with the PS3.

Sony has done so much damage to themselves this gen, outraging current PS3 owners with a fee would just be a mistake. Sony cannot be that stupid (I assume).

However they are preparing us for the inevitable pay service for PS4.

Sony gives its service away for free and still cannot compete with Xbox live.

Sony probably feels that in an attempt to make its service comparable they have to start charging.

Its pretty inevitable.

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

They'll always leave the base level of service free. They've been on record with that numerous times.

There are millions and millions of users that they'd alienate if they suddenly started charging for admission.

What they ARE looking into is a "premium" yearly service charge that would provide subscribers with all sorts of perks like:

- access to all PSN game beta tests
- free subscription to Quore and any free games/demos included
- some type of "free" access (not really clear on the details) to all PS1 games on the PSN
- access to special areas, personal spaces, etc. on HOME
- access to the long desired but obviously "expensive" in terms of bandwidth to maintain (for Sony) cross game chat.

and so on and so forth...

This is what's currently going on ... they're focus polling PSN users about these things in recent months, and Sony typically listens to the majority on those polls, so if people think it's a good idea (I don't EVER have a problem with more options for more stuff) they'll likely run with it.

Honestly, this is pretty old news, I'm not sure why it's coming back up now.