PSN survey hints at upcoming subscription-based features

Sony's European team has sent out a survey to some of its UK PSN members asking them yet again about possible subscription models for the service. The survey is run by a market research company called Ipsos, and appears to offer up a list of possible member benefits for a few different plan tiers, along with pricing for each. The benefits range from more tame ideas like exclusive and early access to content to more interesting options like "free title trials" (first hour of a game for free), user-to-user challenges, "token wagering" and a service called "catch-up TV." Oh, and since it's Sony we're talking about, there's even a listed option for "cloud storage space for games." You can find the full list of possible features after the jump.

The price options differ from plan to plan, but they go as cheap as £2.99 (about $5 U.S.) up to £14.99 (about $25) for monthly fees, with annual fees also listed for 55% less than you'd pay month to month (so around £19.99 up to £99.99, or $32 to $160). Note that just because all of these things are on a survey doesn't mean that Sony has them up and running -- it only means that they're testing the water in terms of what UK members are willing to pay for certain features. But you can just add this to the growing mountain of evidence that Sony is planning some sort of premium subscription service.

[Thanks Marc and everyone who sent this in!]

Customer Service Priority Access
Exclusive Experiences with Sony brands
Extended Console Warranty 3 years
Access to Beta Games
Early Access to Store Game Demos
Early Access to All Store Content
Member Demo Sharing of Full Game
Cross-game Voice Chat Access
Full Title Trial - 1st Hour is Free
Token Wagering
User-to-user challenges
Free Access to PSOne Classics, PSP Minis, and PS3/PSP Themes
Discounts on Store Content
Member Only In-game Content
Trophy Alerts
Cloud Storage Space for Games
Online Music Service
Automatic Downloads and Updates
Loyalty Program Rewards
Facebook Connectivity
Catch-up TV
Online Video Subscription Service

Reader Comments (118)

Is anyone surprised about this? Operating a service like PSN or XBL takes a lot of time, money, and bandwidth. It was only a matter of time before they started charging for it. Especially when competitors like XBL are raking in the dough from a similar offering.

why would a company, that is out to make money sit back while their competition is raking in money like that

Difference is whats free will stay free and they will offer a premium service to those who want it. You cant even play online using XBL Silver.

After MS made online play free on the PC side of Live, I wouldn't be surprised if they did the same thing on Xbox eventually.

You wouldn't be suprised? I would. They had to make it free for PC because on that platform GFWL were compared to games on steam and retail games that pretty much all had free online when you have free competitors on the same platform you can't compete, and they had to make it free in order to finally get some game sales. They had to make GFWL free in order to compete.

However, they've been making a killing on xbox live. 20 million subscribers paying $50 a year is not something they're just going to throw away.

I'm proud of you, Joystiq readers, though there was still a good bit of idiots who think this means online play would cost money, thus showing they lack the ability to read and/or think, there was MUCH less than last time, where like, more than half of the comments were all "DAHHHHH DURRR... I AINT PAYIN TO PLAY WTFFFFF DURRR ME NO HAVE THINKY DOODLE"

It depends on which price has free ps1 games.

If this is Sony's idea of premium content, I am totally ok with it, save a few things here an there (member only in game content should never happen, unless it's DLC and I can pay for it if I'm not subscribed).

Even if you had to pay it would be better. But you wont so everyone can sleep easily tonight. Sony isnt going to pull a microsoft and charge for stuff that should be free.

I seriously don't know what your point is.

I seriously don't know why my reply didn't work.

Hmmm paying a somewhat small monthly fee for a bunch of free shit? sounds like a good idea to me... not to mention this money will prolly go to improve their servers....

Some of the stuff actually sounds pretty cool and would deffinatly give their service a boost, but need more info on it. User to User challenges would actually be pretty cool if done right...

Ha, Brodo it's ironic that you come up with such a harsh insult as "good comeback man" and "I didn't know that Troll was $70" - nice.

That really tops your previous "Oh ya, well I could have sword (lol) that you are acting like a complete dick head"

I only quoted myself because troll simply glanced over my second comment. As in, @Troll (read this Troll)
"[quote]". I was really hoping people would at least be smart enough to make that connection but I guess you kinda fucked that up.

Sony offered an option for a monthly and yearly subscription service.
It was only a stab at Sony for no offering the same things Xbox Live does and then trying to charge us more for it.

No silly its the first full hour of a game.

I don't care about cross game chat and if I have no need to access every single theme based on a subscription fee. I'm good with the way PSN functions currently. Hopefully Sony doesn't fragment the community like Microsoft ... it'd be a mistake. Build it up and charge for it next time around.

I'm not freaking out. Sony's only recently figured out how to make money and give people what they want for this gen--I doubt they are in any kind of a hurry to mess it up.

Why not offer rent-a-game? For a monthly fee, you can download any game from PSN. Maximum 1 download per month, and you cant download another game before you have uninstalled your current rental. Or it may just be deactivated. So we can stop running around buying and selling used discs.

If Sony charged £30 gbp (Great British Pound) per month for unlimited downloads but a fair usage was in place so they only gave the consumer a maximum percentage per month download service making the consumer top up once the download percentage was exceeded. People would pay the subscription then.

Free chat and the other things would stay free but the downloads of games, movies and music would have a download percentage on them. No contracts just a pay as you go service per month. Now that would seem fair to the consumer aswell as Sony.

Another free idea for Sony from the menace. Sony is a fantastic company and listens to it's consumers the public and least their trying which cant be said for most companys lol.

PSN survey hints at upcoming subscription-based features

Reader Comments (118)

Posted: Jan 6th 2010 7:20PM FredFredrickson said

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Posted: Jan 6th 2010 9:05PM Kodros said

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Posted: Jan 6th 2010 11:25PM Special Agent Steve said

Posted: Jan 6th 2010 11:25PM Johnnynumber5 is powered by cell said

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Posted: Jan 7th 2010 8:59AM angelkin said

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