Rumor: Sony to reveal 'PSN+' subscription service at E3 2010

If you can still play games online, access Facebook and watch Netflix I don't see the point of paying $120 a year for an online service.

"Its a much more open platform, FFX1V and upcoming RPG's will be proof of this.."

Yeah, XBL could never OH WAIT

P.S. Home? Seriously? Home is one of your points? You're telling me that Home is cool to you, but party chat is not? Hahaha, what?

(Damn it, I did that whited-out comment-skip thing. My apologies!)

No way would it be $10/month that's 2x the price of Live with less features. Good luck selling that Sony... I'll stick to the 100% free PSN which has been excellent since I bought a PS3. Unless PSN+ is really like $30/year or something.

honestly, i only see people benefiting from this. the people who pay for the service will be happy with what they pay for, hopefully, and everyone who won't pay for it will still benefit as Sony sees more revenue which they can use to improve the overall PSN service, including the free parts. WIN WIN.

Eh, the free games sounds good for me. I must spend at least $200 on PSN games a year at least. >.<

And meh, I don't mind supporting the PSN if it improves it, even if I don't get a lot out of it.

In the end, who cares? You can have fun using PSN, and that's fine. Can I play Halo, Left 4 Dead, or Gears on PSN? Do most of my friends use PSN? No, so I will continue to use and enjoy XBL. I don't care which one is "better".

Crap, reply fail, my bad.

Well, except for non-paying members still being able to play games online as well as potential rotating free games, then yea.

Maybe if they offered everything that Live offered it would be worth the price?

Nah. I've been brainwashed by Sony and its fans over the years to believe that PSN is better simply because it is free. Why would I want to change my tune now?

Tbh XBL is different in my eyes.
If you're a Silver member you might as well be playing offline.

Here they're creating tiered levels of service for PSN users, but both can play online.

Look, i love my PS3, and I like sony's products. But this is bull. Free PSN service is one of their major selling points, and holding back something like Cross-Game Voice Chat that people have been screaming about for years for ten dollars a month is bull.

But to be honest, things like free games and demos and the protection plan sound like subscription stuff to me. But CROSS GAME VOICE CHAT SHOULD BE FOR EVERYONE!

Who said PSN is better than XBL? I think PSN is "better" for me cause it's free. I don't think anyone will argue PSN is better feature wise, but better in the terms of the value PSN holds at no cost to the consumer. I want to play online, every once and a while, and for XBL that's not really an option. Weither a person is playing 1 hour a week or 10 hours a day you still have to pay 50 dollars a year. To me that is lame because there are times I don't go on line for a month and then maybe I'll play for a many hours a week few months strait. I do so at my leisure, instead of having to pay for permission to use my internet connection (that I already pay 40 bucks a month for) on my console. Plus, I grew up playing Doom, Duke Nukem, Quake, Blood, original Battlefield, C.O.D. etc for no extra cost and you know what it worked out just fine. Every time I think of XBL I think of bottled water. Yeah, its "convient", but so it walking up to a fountain or buying a sports bottle and drinking water for free.

Sorry, I forgot what my point was





Oh yeah, PSN is still free to play online, so fanboys get over it.

Im not going to subscribe to this, but what does xbl give you that psn doesnt currently ?

Does it give you 256 player game support ? what about dedicated servers for most games ? No no no, it gives you cross game voice chat, a pretty useless feature for people like me..

does xbl give you subscription to a protection plan ? ,
does it give you cloud based game saves ?
An automated patching service for recently played games ?
Access to free mini games / in game dlc / ps one classics ?
What about first hour demo access to games ?

Im sorry,but psn+ has just raised the bar well above the crap that is XBL, come back to me when XBL can support FPS' with more than 32 players, until then XBL is not worth a single cent. You have to be a real brain washed idiot to believe that just because a service costs money it automatically makes it a better service..

McDuck, that is the best part! You don't have to!!!! YAAAAAY!

You see I'm going to be in the process of moving it the near future. Had I paid for a year subscription and it takes me a month or more to get a connection going well that would be my loss, but nah PSN is free. It will be there when I reconnect.

@Mcduck

There's a difference between being able to support a game with 256 players and having a game which allows 256 players.

PSN doesn't currently give you any of the features you listed... did you read the article? One thing I've learned with this current gen of consoles is that you get what you pay for, this rumored PSN+ will be better than XBL Gold but its also likely to cost more.

@ the burning sensation the PSN _is_ better than XBL, im sorry but you guys really need to understand something...

Do you go online to play multiplayer games or to chat ? The only thing that the XBL has over PSN is cross game chat.. What about the actual xbl service ?

Its a pile of peer2peer junk.. Why does it not have any multiplayer titles like MAG that can do 256 player matches ? What about 64 player support ? 32 ? No ? Do you know why ? Its because its a bunch of peer2peer junk thats why...

How can you even claim XBL is better, when it comes to actual multiplayer games it sucks a whole load more than the PSN..

Look at the general stability of the PSN, how many times has the XBL been down for extended periods of time ? What about the PSN ?

Its all about implementation, the PSN network is far more open than the XBL and its far better for actually playing multiplayer games.. Sure it doesnt have cross game voice chat , but so what ?

Take a look at features sit down and list the features of PSN and list the same features from XBL, sorry PSN has XBL beat and its free.. Even Home has become a good asset, it has some brilliant mini games and events in there. Its not exactly a small thing, its a massive world which is continously growing, where is the equivalent on XBL ?

McDuck,

You are probably one of only 10-20 people who will argue til they are blue in the face that the free PSN service is better than the paid XBL service. And the only reason you will argue that is because you are a die hard Sony Fanboi.

So keep it up....your face will be purple soon.

Blah blah blah, feature this, feature that. If I love playing Halo online, then XBL is the best possible service, because it's the only one. Some of those PSN+ features do sound useful, but they're not worth $120 a year. Feature lists don't convince anybody of anything.

Also, XBL is not $50 a year anymore if you're not an idiot. $35-40 is where most retailers routinely put it, and sales bring it even lower. My current sub cost me $25, or $2 a month. Tell me how these features are 5x better than that (which I still only pay because it's mandatory for online interaction).

McDuck, I think you should "understanding something", telling people that what they enjoy sucks will only get you downvoted. Besides, really it's a matter of opinion, "understand" that you can never truely be "right" when state an opinion.

(I do loves me some quotations :P)

McDuck, I go online to have fun, and XBL helps me do that 1000x over in ways that PSN does not.

I have a lot more fun playing games in a group with friends as we laugh and holler about the crazy things going on in the game, rather than sitting there in silence. Playing a game of Gears or L4D in a party with 7 friends where everyone (on both teams) is in the same chat provides more fun in an hour than anything I've played on PSN has provided in its entire lifetime.

And even better, XBL makes it a thousand times easier to to actually get into a game with those friends, which again is about 1000x more fun that running around some random server playing by myself. On PSN you basically only get a game full of friends if you plan it ahead of time because it's such a PITA to get everything set up if everyone is currently off doing their own thing. On XBL it's literally a few button presses and you're all chatting away, playing, in a matter of seconds.

So yeah, if you're one of those super serious gamers that just wants to go into some random CoD server and try to get your l337 K/D ratio high to impress the internets then no, you won't find any advantages in XBL. If your goal is to have fun, than XBL is worth 500x its weight in gold.

At $30/year I can honestly say that for the amount of fun it provides, XBL is probably the best value of anything I've ever purchased. At the price of FREE for the amount of fun it provides, I can honestly say that PSN would not even rank in my top 100 in terms of best value things I've ever had.

@the burning sensation, sorry about jumping at you, my bad, sorry.


@Blacked Out , XBL cannot support games @256 player at least the old implementation that still supported the original xbox couldnt.. I dont know about the new implementation, but I doubt it will.. The PSN can, its a lot more open if you look at MAG for example. A small file is downloaded from the psn store, the rest is then grabbed from the server infrastucture that supports MAG. Its a much more open platform, FFX1V and upcoming RPG's will be proof of this.. Another Example UT3 supports player created mods made on the PC, playable on the ps3 through PSN.

@Mal F4cti0n .. Prove to me how the XBL is better, what is so much better about the XBL ?

List to me the amount of downtime between the PSN and XBL over the last 3 years. Which one has had greater down time ?
Which one supports higher players playing in a given match at any time ?
Which one primarily supports a peer2peer network ?
Which one primarily supports a client/server based infrastructure ?

What bonuses does the XBL have over the PSN ? What special attributes does it have ?

Instead of just calling me a fanboy put down some solid facts, back up your statement with some solid facts around performance..

Does the XBL connect at a better rate ?
Does it give better throughput ?
Does it offer more services ?
Does it provide a web browser ?
Does it have a free roaming world, Like Home ?
Does it support cross game chat ?

What is it about the XBL that makes it far superior to the PSN ?

I dont need to argue about something until I am blue in the face, contrary to your labelling of me I am not a die hard sony fanboi.. I am tired of hearing this stupid misconception that some how the XBL is better, when for multilplayer gaming no one has actually proven this to be true.. Its about multiplayer playability, the one that provides the better experience playing games is the better platform end of and that would mean the service that predominantly provides a client/server based setup for its games.

"Its a much more open platform, FFX1V and upcoming RPG's will be proof of this.."

Yeah, XBL could never OH WAIT

P.S. Home? Seriously? Home is one of your points? You're telling me that Home is cool to you, but party chat is not? Hahaha, what?

McDuck, I don't think you could possibly be missing the point of XBL more badly if you tried.

McDuck,

I couldn't list the down time because I don't track that. I can say that I have never not been able to connect to xbox Live in the past 5 years. Wait, I think there was one time when XBL was down 1 day for upgrades. And I think they upgraded because they did have problems when some game or another was released and swamped XBL. I don't know though, it has never happened to me.

Yes, XBL does allow for cross game chat. It even allows me to set up a "theatre" and invite friends over to watch a Net-Flix movie. I can even chat with people while they are in a movie and I am playing a game.

Anyway, my point is that people who have both and every gaming/review/critic outlet in the world says that the paid XBL is better than the free PSN, but you can't beat the free price of the PSN. It comes down to what is better for the individual. Is $3.33/month worth it for a better online gaming experience than free? You can argue back and forth what is the better value for the money. That would come down to opinion and I fully understand and suppor that. What you fail to understand is that if you throw cost out the window, 99.9% of the people who have experienced both will say that XBL is better. You are just in that 0.1% minority there.

McDuck, how about this? One of my favorite "features" of XBL is that most people have mics. Sure, some of them are douchebags (I'm sure I am too sometimes), but it's still fun communicating with other players when it works well (except in MW2, the honeypot for obscenity). PSN is much too quiet with its majority of mic-less users.

@Blacked Out

"[Sony is] creating tiered levels of service for PSN users, but both can play online."

Yes, but one tier has cross-game chat perma-mute enabled until they climb up... and that's your 'peer pressure' to buy this.

I guess it must be primarily an age thing.. For me entertainment is playing the games, playing online is the fun. sitting inside a laggy p2p match pisses me off.

I guess if I was 15 I could see the benefits of cross game chat, even getting my friends organised at the same time is impossible, never mind all sat in our homes at the same time ready to play a game, thats near impossible. If you finish school and your all at home then it makes sense, but when you start working or going to uni , or basically as you get older your all too busy to meet up never mind actually sit down and play games at the same time.. So I guess, thats why I cannot see the value of cross game chat..

I think PSN is just generally designed for the older games players. There are plenty of people that have mics, again I guess it must be an age thing.. I wont turn on my mic to talk shit to people online, whats the point ? I will talk to people when I need to.. If your playing in a team based game that requires co-operation people do talk..

If Sony was really smart they would only require one person have PSN+ to form a party chat. Then people that obviously will never pay for PSN+, with less features than Xbox LIve has had for years, can still use the Party Chat and perhaps play more games on PSN. It's an excellent service as is, being free, but if they allowed that, I would be usage would increase.

McDuck, that's the whole point though. With the XBL party system it's not something where you have to all plan to be on at the same time. If you're on, and you see some of your friends on, it's just a button press to get them all together, in a matter of seconds. From there you can talk and see if they want to get a game started up or whatever, then launch it and everyone gets invites (real invites, not PSN's fake hack-around text message triggers) from there, with one button press.

And for me, it's the fact that I'm an older gamer that makes it so perfect. When I was 15 it wouldn't have been as necessary because back then we all would have been at someone's house to play anyway. This is re-creating that (or as I like to compare it to, recreating your college dorm room with your buddies) from across the world, with no scheduling, driving, etc needed.

If I log on and see some of my friends on, it's literally seconds before we're all in a group chatting, laughing and having a good time. And again, this is VERY underrated, but the ability to talk to these people in a party when on opposite teams of the same game is unreal amounts of fun. Yelling at someone to stop pounding you into the ground as they hit you with a Charger in Left 4 Dead, or yelling "bullshit!!!" when your buddy just decimated you in Gears of War is more fun in a matter of seconds than playing as some random by yourself will garner you in a year.

I honestly feel bad for people that are missing out on this stuff. I've been gaming since I was old enough to turn on a TV, and none of it has ever compared to the amount of fun this kind of gaming brings now. I remember the first time I played a game online, the whole "OMG, I'm playing this with someone around the world, this is the coolest shit ever!!". What XBL has brought is 100x more a revelation than even that was.

I don't even know how people can just boot up and jump into a game of CoD to play by themselves anymore. It's just such a minute fraction of the amount of fun they could be having that it's not even worth doing. Though, I guess if that's the best some people have experienced, they don't know what they're missing out on and ignorance is bliss.

Even if your RL friends don't play much. If you have a 360, join a gaming community like 2o2p or AGE and I guarantee you that you will wonder how you ever played games the way you did before.

If Mcduck praises the higher cost of this PSN+ than XBL, and if he is a Sony fanboy as claimed, it's likely he does not have an Xbox 360 and has hardly any experience with XBL. Just as I don't have a PS3 and know nothing of what PSN has to offer, so I will not go out of my way to pretend to and be shot down by fellow Joystiq members.

I'd just say XBL and PSN are on even sides. One's free and one isn't, but like any other free service, you wouldn't expect much from it. But I would have to say $10 is a tad too steep when that adds up for a year or two.

Also, if I had a PS3 and MAG... Well, just because it has 256 players, it's not like I'm gonna talk to them all.

McDuck,

Huh, weird, I would have thought differently with the age thing, but I understand where you are coming from. I am over 30 and like the friends list feature and the ability to jump in and out of some of my "friends" games.

I usually don't use my mic, but when some of my "friends" are online and we play together then I use it. I don't really know these people (that is why I put them in quotes), I only know them through XBL. Two of my favorites, Monk and Remson, live in Boston and they f*cking crack me up when they laugh hysterically while killing people (or each other). In the Halo:Reach beta I had to put the controller down cuz I was laughing so hard when they started trying to land on eachother with the jet pack load out.

You guys aren't understanding what McDuck is saying. He's talking about the flexibility of the service for multiplayer applications. He's saying when you weigh the difference between cross game chat and network performance and capability that PSN is a better service. It's obvious from the replies most of you guys use XBL as a social platform to interact at the detriment of a more robust multiplayer experience.

@aristokrat
mics aren't a feature of the network.

I think most of you guys are looking at it from the fanboy side and not the technical side mcduck is talking about.

The question is would you rather have a free multiplayer component that's got a more open network and server based technology or a multiplayer service that charges you to host the games on your machine and has many more limitations on player count for the bonus of simply being able to chat.

It seems to me that the majority of you all are more interested in chatting while gaming even if it means you get a weaker experience.

It'd be great to have the best of both worlds and that seems to be the aim of psn+ ... and then some. How are you guys going to feel if PSN+ gives all the features of xbl and then some for the same price with the addition of the more flexible server based tech? Will you change your stance or continue to swear up and down that xbl is better because of some begnine feature?

McDuck: "Sitting inside a laggy P2P connection pisses me off..."

Uh, you do realize that PSN doesn't have dedicated servers, right? Most games utilize a P2P hosting system, though there are a few exceptions. But seriously, what XBL games have you been playing that you've experienced serious lag? Oh that's right, you haven't...

what about the leap year bug mcduck, i was playing xbl march 1st... just saying

Johnny, for starters, that's not all he was talking about, he just didn't know there was anything else to it. You're right, XBL doesn't cost more money to have dedicated servers or less laggy gameplay or anything like that. It costs more because of the features it adds, features that it's pretty clear the PS3 can never have (as is proven by their fake cross-game invite work around hack) because they didn't invest the money and architecture in it upfront.

So, if we choose to ignore all that stuff, which is far more fun-provoking than anything you're talking about, they're basically on even ground with XBL still having a slight advantage.

This idea that PSN is dedicated servers and XBL is P2P is a myth. Both PSN and XBL give the option for developers to use dedicated servers or P2P. This whole myth only came around because Sony uses dedicated servers in their first party games. They do this as a game publisher, not as the owner of PSN, and it doesn't apply to non-Sony games. MW2 is P2P on XBL, and P2P on PSN. Likewise there are plenty of 360 games with dedicated servers (L4D), and plenty of PS3 games that are P2P.

So, with that cleared up, we move on to the one instance where there is a difference in actual network infastructure, and that's in the fact that MS has its own matchmaking servers whereas Sony does not, and leaves this up to the developers. MS pretty much has these things down to a science, whereas individual developers with far less money and experience in the field, quite simply, do not. This is the reason that any time any semi-popular PS3 game comes out, trying to play it online is an exercise in futility for the first few days (or sometimes more).

Any way, the bottom line is that if McDuck is trying to JUST focus on the technical aspect of bandwidth, etc (which he's not), then he's right, XBL offers very little advantage that is going to be visible to the end user. What it does offer are social features that are a much bigger deal and completely change the way you'll play games forever (and really, this is what you're paying for), alongside many other smaller advantages (custom soundtracks playing anywhere, invites that are actual objects and not just text message hacks, etc).

I also wanted to add, I actually think XBL makes gaming cheaper than PSN. The social ease with which it encourages you to play with friends makes games last MUCH longer than they would otherwise.

If I'm just jumping into random games with random people, sitting in silence, and grinding through some MP there's no way that game is going to last me more than a month or two, and definitely no way it's going to last years. But I still play Gears 1 several times a week, and a big part of that is that playing with a group of friends, a game never really gets old because interacting with people you know while playing it keeps things fresh.

@vcize
OMG THIS.

I'm glad you made the comment, because I was getting frustrated reading the thread. Where did this PSN = dedicated servers come from? Warhawk?! I dunno, but it's awfully frustrating.

As a network admin, I can assure you that the network infrastructure hat must be tipped in XBL's favor. MS has some interesting rules and guidelines that they make devs follow, and yes some of them may be questionable, but they do so in an effort to guarantee a good experience for the player. But like vcize said... the tech isn't keeping anyone from using p2p, dedicated servers, or any combination of the two. p2p happens to be most cost effective for the publishers/devs, so it's what's used. And 90% of the time, provides a perfectly enjoyable and seamless experience.
The only thing current gen games lack that is not directly MS or Sony's fault, is the ability to use both match-matching and dedicated servers simultaneously. Gears 1 looked as if it was going to offer this, but fell short. I think this would be great because people could then choose to match-make for easy game access, or choose from a list of dedicated hosts. Some sort of "dedicated host" approval system could be put in place similar to the patch/xbla/content certification process to keep rogue servers from popping up and allowing cheating (this is a major problem in the PC space and is the main reason MS built the matchmaking/p2p system.) But ehh, side rant.

In any case. Yeah, if you think there's something 'technically' superior happening in the background on the PSN, you'd be wrong.

"And again, this is VERY underrated, but the ability to talk to these people in a party when on opposite teams of the same game is unreal amounts of fun."

This has a distinct double edge though. I've seen some people complain that other people don't talk with their team because they are in a separate party rather than the game's chat channel.

I'll throw my 2 cents in since Scrooge hijacked this thread in a very biased and factually inaccurate fashion.

The dedicated server thing is a myth, as has been stated, aside from some 1st party stuff the PSN is also p2p - there is no technical, performance superiorty on either side.

1st of all it's important to realize that the PSN would simply not be where it is today without XBL - Sony was pushed into matching that standard by the competition and they have made great strides. Having said that, the beauty of XBL is how completely integrated it is into every facet of the console. Practically anything you want to do is a button press or two away. XBL redefined gaming as a social experience this gen and there is simply no arguing that.

I love that I get home from work (adult, full time job) and I can jump on, set up a party and as my friends jump on they can just instantly join - we'll talk and BS and when everyone is on we'll get into a game together - so easy. And if one or two of us don't feel like playing multiplayer they can still hang in the party and chat while the rest of us are playing, even if they are playing something else.

The PSN, as improved as it is, just feels disjointed from the whole experience. Hardly anyone has mics, getting together as a group to play games is a frustrating chore, the title updates are ridiculous (took me 45 minutes to download, then install the update for Heavy Rain - by the time it was done all my friends were on Live and I just played Gears w/them and got back to HR the next day). I had a friend who is a PS3 owner over and I was showing her a game on the 360 which happened to require and update and she couldn't believe it was so fast (typically a few seconds).

It's all the little things that add up to make Live a great experience - the PSN has come a long way and is certainly functional, but for the total experience Live offers? Not even close.

@Vcize

I may be too late for you to respond, but can you explain the 'PSN's fake hack-around text message triggers'? I don't get it. When I'm online and other friends are as well, we can get on Bad Company 2 in less than a minute, just about as long as it takes for the game to start up. Who cares how the invites look, as long as they work. If someone can't come they can simply reply to the invite. So the only real advantage to XBL is that you can discuss it in voice and that you're able to chat with friends on opposing teams. If those features are enough for you to pay for XBL, that's your choice, but PSN is just as fast and you can still have a blast chatting with only your team. So don't act as if people that are on PSN are all loners on CoD.

@Johnny the tiger exactly what I was trying to say thank you. Unfortunately I have stirred up a hornets nest and pissed off a few 360 fanboys.


As for the rest..

You only need to look at the games to know how each platform is set up..

Lets take a loot at it from a billing perspective, what exactly are microsoft points ? Why is it not in real curreny ?

Look at the list of p2p vs dedicated setups on the psn and xbl.. Practically every 1st party multiplayer game on the psn is client/server based.. Need I say more, again this is clearly evident when you take a look at the list of players supported.. None of you seem to understand this, peer2peer is not capable of supporting more than about 16 players, because its dependant on a home users net connection.. KZ2 32 player , it uses a client/server based model ... resistence2 64 player again uses client/server model ... MAG supports 256 player again client/server model.. No fps on the XBL is that ambitious, ask yourself why .. If you objectively look at it, it points to the problem lying with XBL.

I would expect a service that charges me to provide support for the most amount of players in a match, not the free service.. It costs a huge chunk of money to have dedicated servers capable of simultaneous 256 player support.. Please understand this..

Once you begin to understand the sort of infrastucture a 256 player online fps game requires you will understand the differences between the platforms.. There is obvious limitations within the xbl because there is practically no fps' on XBL that support more than 16 players in a game, a very clear limitation of peer2peer based games .. Even calling all cars on the psn used a client/server based setup...

In the end, who cares? You can have fun using PSN, and that's fine. Can I play Halo, Left 4 Dead, or Gears on PSN? Do most of my friends use PSN? No, so I will continue to use and enjoy XBL. I don't care which one is "better".

You get a free PSN game every month though.
Theres quite a few features in there too.

But does the game lock out after that month? That's what it seems to imply, but it could be read either way I guess.

It just says you will have "access" to Minis and PSOne classics, not a free game a month. If I remember the story on the test plans awhile back, you pretty much are paying for the right to browse and buy from the PSN store...

@ Blacked_Out :

WHere does it say you get a free game a month? I see ... a rotating list of PSOne titles (well, okay).. and I see free 1-hour demo access... But nothing about downloading a free game every month? Unless I'm just blind, which I very well may be.

For $50, I'd buy this. For $120 ... no way.