Sony Contemplating Making PSN a Paid Service

TechRadar has noted in a recent survey – sent to some consumers by Sony Asia – that Sony asks the question as to whether PlayStation gamers would be prepared to pay a monthly fee for the online service. Sony currently offers access to its online service free of charge for all Playstation 3 owners, which is a pretty big selling point. I found it very surprising to read this, as I have read numerous quotes in the past from Sony folk that the service would remain free for a long time. Has that time come to an end? A possible trade-off is that Sony would offer free downloads of PSP and PSOne game downloads (and possibly other perks) to subsidize the cost.

Honestly, in my opinion, I don’t believe its a good idea. Sony needs as many advantages as possible to keep the PS3 momentum rolling, and this feels like it would be a negative aspect especially as access to the PSN has been free. While there is no official word from Sony, we at Sony Insider can only hope that this remains a contemplation..and not a reality.

Information courtesy of TechRadar.

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31
Aug 2008
POSTED BY Christopher MacManus
POSTED IN

Network, Playstation

DISCUSSION 10 Comments
  • http://www.steveweb.eu Steve

    That would be the worst thing they could do. So far they have always said that the fact that it is free, weights against the better service that XBoxLive seems to provide.

  • http://www.steveweb.eu Steve

    That would be the worst thing they could do. So far they have always said that the fact that it is free, weights against the better service that XBoxLive seems to provide.

  • Karl

    ’ve watched the Playstation Network has come so far over the course of the last year. With the addition of both Home and Life with Playstation the network is only going to get better. The Network took some time to grow and improve, but now it easily rivals (in my opinion exceeds) Xbox Live. At this stage in the game, I understand that the cost of maintaining network must be high – but at the same time I think there may be some back lash if they tried to implement a fee.

  • Karl

    ’ve watched the Playstation Network has come so far over the course of the last year. With the addition of both Home and Life with Playstation the network is only going to get better. The Network took some time to grow and improve, but now it easily rivals (in my opinion exceeds) Xbox Live. At this stage in the game, I understand that the cost of maintaining network must be high – but at the same time I think there may be some back lash if they tried to implement a fee.

  • jawa908098

    The only reason why people say PSN is better than XBL is because it's free. PSN offerns no where near the amount of services XBL does. If they charge for their bare bones online service they'd doom themselves in the never ending battle between XBL and PSN. Unless because the fact that we are paying for psn we'll get more features like cross game voice chat, party system, etc

  • Terriman

    PSN FOR FREE!! Please please. Don't break the best thing that you do until now in this generation… please… :-S

  • Stefanosss

    WTF they are doing

  • Stefanosss

    PSN FOR FREE FFS!!!:D:D:D

  • Guarddog

    You wanna know how PSN blows XBL out of the water. XBOX could NEVER handle a game the likes of MAG which we have been beta testing for a few days now and is the game to end the Xbox…..Xbox sucks GO SONY!!!!!!!!!!

  • Guarddog

    You wanna know how PSN blows XBL out of the water. XBOX could NEVER handle a game the likes of MAG which we have been beta testing for a few days now and is the game to end the Xbox…..Xbox sucks GO SONY!!!!!!!!!!