A senior Sony executive has stated that the plans are under consideration for the company to start charging for its PlayStation Network service.
Kaz Hirai, Chairman and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment America, first said the charges were under consideration, following a questionnaire in Asia asking whether gamers would be prepared to pay for the PSN service.
Now Sony's senior vice president of marketing, Peter Dille, has added his voice to the chorus.
Without giving a definitive yes, he said: "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."
Ready to wage war
Dille feels that PSN has now matured to the point where it's the equal of Microsoft's Xbox Live, and plans to better it by working "to address consumers' wants and needs.
"And try to also surprise and delight consumers with things they didn't think they needed because that's always been what makes PlayStation a little bit different -- that we try to be a little bit visionary."
Dille also revealed that PSN is also planning its own reality show, to be called The Tester, where contestants will compete to win a job as a tester at Sony games.
"It's that type of original programming that helps differentiate the platform and helps tip the balance to people making a decision to get on board with PlayStation versus the competition because they can get things here they can't get anywhere else."
Via IGN
Your comments (8) Click to add a new comment
psy43
February 4th 2010
8. This is a bit of a joke. Many people (including myself) bought a PS3 for, amongst other things, its free online play. Whilst I don't have a problem with a premium prescripton service for supplementary content the PSN would have to surpass Xbox Live before it's worth paying for. I agree with davidosh - its miles off on reliability.
Secondly, they said PSN would remain free. Now they're saying there will be an additional service which they'll charge for. How long til they say everything has to be paid for or free online multiplayer is limited only to minimal services/times/games?
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gooball
February 4th 2010
7. We all seem to be getting ahead of ourselves here... The free portion of the service will remain, but additional premium services will be offered to those who chose to upgrade their free account to a subscription based one.
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davidosh
February 4th 2010
6. This is absolute bull I never use PSN since it never works and can never, ever find matchups for is it heck as good as Xbox Live
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amit290
February 4th 2010
5. I'd be quite happy to pay for PSN if it came to it. There is no game I play that doesnt use the service, so making me pay £X for the service makes sense. Hopefully this money would go into improving the service further.
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112kane112
February 4th 2010
4. Utterly ludicrous. I own a ps3 for the sole reason of the free live play. That's all it has over the xbox. If they charge for live play then xbox wins on all playing fields.
It will even out the costs of owning the console, yet the ps3 still costs around £100 more. For a £42 blu-ray player as the only bonus.
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badgerpog
February 4th 2010
3. So long as we continue to get the current things free, they can canrge what they like for extra services.
Following the Xbox model would be suicide.
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tombutcher1990
February 4th 2010
2. hahaha!!! so all the sony fanboys that say "well we don't have to pay for online!" what do you say now eh?
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rob_b
February 4th 2010
1. We still need to know exactly what they want to charge for, to decide to move to a piad model for online play will seriously wreck things for a LOT of people & I imagine a lot will move to the 360 if they have to pay anyway considering the benefits of Live.
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