SCEE president alludes to upcoming paid PSN subscription option

by Ben Gilbert on May 26th 2010 4:00PM

Even though Sony officially "won't comment on rumors or speculation" regarding a paid PSN offering in the near future, Sony Europe president Andrew House gave a bit more substantial answer in a recent Q&A on the UK PlayStation site. When asked outright, "Will PlayStation Network become a paying service?", House responded, "Kaz Hirai stated a few months ago that we were looking at a premium service to sit alongside the current free service and that objective has not changed. You'll learn more about it very soon."

He went on to console potentially upset readers with the knowledge that "the current PSN as you know it will remain a free service." That said, it seems like times are a-changin' for Sony's online network, and some (if not all) of the claims in our recent report on a "PSN+" service may come to pass in the not so distant future (cross-game chat, anyone?). If we were bettin' folks, we'd bet that not so distant future will start around the time of E3.

[Via 1UP]

Source

Tags: andrew-house, kaz-hirai, playstation-network, psn, psn-plus, scee, sony, Sony-Computer-Entertainment-Europe

Reader Comments (67)

It sucks if it happens (from the sounds of it, it is true) but I understand why they have to. Maintaining service costs money and seeing as how there are more PSN users now online Sony has to make money. Its just something how this was a huge plus for Sony against XBL.

It's still going to be free to play your games online.. this "premium" service is for a bunch of fancy features that aren't exactly a necessity when gaming online.

What the f*ck is wrong with people who can READ EVERYTHING BUT THIS:

****"the current PSN as you know it will remain a free service."****

I wish I could italicize, bold, sky-write this but it seems that all people read in these articles is $...

What the Hell is wrong with getting a premium service? You act like XBL hasn't been gouging their people for almost the same online service, but the difference is our "Silver" accounts actually allow the most important part of online gaming: playing with others.

@Wiizer: As true as that is, if you want all the features you have to pay on either console, so to the consumer wanting them, the carrots for the respective consoles are at nearly equal distances.

@Wiizer:

Prove it (the sky-writing part, that is). =P

Is "prove it" the new Joystiq meme or something? That's twice I've seen it in like three articles.

Hm, it's actually pretty catchy, I must admit.

I agree with you all guys, but I know many of my friends wont upgrade, and in that sense a feature like corss-game chat wont be all that good... I mean, at least for that feature it should've been part of the basic PSN.

Fine with me. If the extra features are worth it, Ill upgrade. If not, Ill stick with free subscription.

I just hope it doesn't evolve into separating subscribers. We shall see...

I'll probably end up paying for it

Before people rage, you don't have to upgrade. If you were happy with PSN before, you shouldn't be bothered with this coming premium model.

/preemptivereasoning

But I'm not happy that I have to pay for voice chat...and the friends I play with don't log on very often and are going to find this premium subscription very hard to justify.

Firmware should ALWAYS be free.

I don't like to get into the whole "what should be free and what shouldn't" argument, because it's usually never productive or at least conclusive. However, everything isn't set in stone yet, and I really can't see Sony keeping cross-chat a premium member exclusive. So, just wait it out and see what really goes down.

"Firmware should ALWAYS be free"

HELL YEAH MAN !!!!.....

wait ....

they ARE free...wtf are you whining about ?

"and the friends I play with don't log on very often and are going to find this premium subscription very hard to justify."

Get better friends. Maybe, some that play more and aren't afraid to communicate? -_-

i think sony needs a new "deny rumors" statement, b/c whenever they use "we dont comment on rumor and speculation" you know within the next month its gonna be announced by them. i.e. PSPgo, LittleBigPlanet 2, and countless others.

so yes, paid PSN will be announced at E3

Yeah, I like it because they generally say when it isn't true, so it practically voids any purpose that the statement has.

They are not denying anything, they just won't comment on when, what and where. Haha.

Honestly I would pay for the Premium Service if it would cost around $ 40~50. But in no way I'm going to pay 9.99 per month.

There will obviously be cheaper multi-month options. No way in hell will it be 9.99/mo always and only

Just like Live, I would go out k. The limb that they'll offer a discounted yearly rate. If you were to buy Live at the full monthly retail cost it would be $7 a month at the tune of $84 a year but if you buy a full years time it would be $50. So it would make sense for them to do something to that effect

I been playing online for free since 2006 and I would pay for the new service if they give us more excellent 1st party games. I remember playing Resistance: Fall of Man with a 20 vs 20 match without lagging while on Halo 3 had so much lag. And to people saying that live is better than psn how is that? I can have friends and chat with them for free! The only difference is that you have to pay for live.

you can chat with your friends on xbox live for free too.

jus say'en . . .

Across all games.

@desertpyrate

the difference the two video services is one is a streaming service and ones a download service. So to compare the two is a bit off. I've used the PSN movie service twice what I've found helpful to do let it load up for maybe 5 minutes, then you can watch it without catching up to the download.

DesertPyrate's points are pretty damn solid. As far as the video service, I have both the PS and XBox, and I don't like the PS dl service for movies at all. You cannot, in my experience, watch a movie even after 5 minutes of dl'ing it. I have learned that when I use the service I let it just dl the whole movie. The streaming is simply nicer and arguing against it blows my mind.

I bought MW2 for the 360 specifically for XBL.

I was one of the 2.2 million people that played that game on XBL at launch and did not experience any hiccup at all.

MS totally owned the MW2 launch.

I just can't see PSN being able to do the same for 2.2 million people.

what's the difference between a game that has a couple million players vs. a couple thousand players? lag. besides, in Halo 3 you can set match priority for a good connection.

I play Uncharted 2 and other PS3 titles online and there's occasionally lags in those games, so what's your point? Lag is dependent upon your connection/location/# of players/etc/etc/etc

regardless, getting back to the article I probably won't bother with the PS3's PSN+ premium upgrade.

Paid subscription just means more benefits. I could see this being a good move for Sony, while others who wish to not pay can still have their services.

basically......If it launches in July, I can see Sony touting by TGS "1,000,000 people signed up for PSN+"....

and if it has the features people are talking about then I would expect it to do that much

I'm all in.

Where do I sign up?

They didn't even announce the subscription model (or even the existence of the service, technically), yet you're already on board? Calm down man, it's not like it's an exclusive service and you have to call dibs on it.

http://dansideas.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/wet-blanket.jpg

You could've at least filled it in. I like awards. :(

the only thing i see bad about this is that i can see The free psn possiblely getting no more features added to it.

i wonder how Sonys fanbase is going to react to having to pay for something they were getting for free (in regards to updates)

I wonder how Silver accounts have coped with getting no updates either...

That probably is how it will pan out, but other than a decent chat system I don't really wan't anything else from PSN.

"I wonder how Silver accounts have coped with getting no updates either..."

but sliver user NEVER had access to the features given in updates to begin with. . . .

Pretty much my point but whatever, see it as a positive for them if you wish.

Wait a second.

You're all missing the vital point here.

BigFat posted his opinion in a relatively thoughtful, calm manner.

I'm impressed!

Eh, I think I'll stick with the free PSN, personally.

This is bad news. I remember reading that premium members are going to be offered "exclusive DLC", which means Sony will now be charging for DLC that would have otherwise been free had they stuck with their current one-tier plan.

no proof of that....hell we get "exclusive" stuff via Qore now.....other people outside the US don't have Qore....could be the same stuff.....hope not....hope its actually more....

Exclusive DLC is actually becoming pretty normal. Some games are pushing this feature to get more retails sales.

I would guess it would pan out like this - PSN users have to pay for DLC that they want, PSN+ users get it for a discount or for free. Either way, the scenario isn't changing for the PSN user.

Now, if they lockout DLC so that only PSN+ users can download them, then that's an issue.

I'm not payin for SHIT!!!

It Better stay free or I will burn my PS3's in protest....

RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE!!!!

did I do it right?

Not so, my friend. Your spelling is much too coherent and there isn't nearly enough ignorance for me to take the trolling seriously. Back to Trolling Ed for you, Chris.

PS3's?

So you can cross-chat to yourself whilst playing two+ different games, yea?

I will be quite angry if they charge for cross game voice chat, something we have been waiting for for years. I won't subscribe to this premium service even if they do stick cross game chat in it though.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢

I think you forgot the 'M' in front of all those dollar signs...

£££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££

I would pay $10/month to be able to move my protected saves around via cloud saving. Getting real old having two PS3s and having to dedicate each one to a particular game.

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SCEE president alludes to upcoming paid PSN subscription option

Reader Comments (67)

Posted: May 26th 2010 4:04PM shimrra74 said

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