Sony's Hirai: PlayStation Network not yet profitable

@Shadowbender
I do. About 25% of people on my friends list do as well. I find it to be incredibly good value for what I get.

@Dark Archon PSN Archonik XBL Dar

Hmm...See, I'm not subscribing, but I gotta say there are some pretty good bribes from Sony going on--things like betas and the likes.

@Shadowbender
I do. It's pretty cool, with the discounts and the free psn games.

@Shadowbender
Here here, I was an early adopter. So far in content use I have enjoyed more than $70 worth of content over my premium and that is just the stuff I like...I think I don't really have a problem sticking with it. My only problems with the service involve being unable to purchase "free" games when they are on sale and the sad PSOne Classics offerings, come on sony you have a lot of my favorites hidden away in that goodie bag of yours!

@Shadowbender

I too am a subscriber to PlayStation Plus, and it is very well worth it for all of the free PSN games, themes. betas, avatars, and mini's that Sony has given so far, not to mention the services such as Hulu Plus (that Plus received well before anyone else) And the NHL Center ICE app for free. It was well worth the 50 dollars I initially paid. Especially because the 15 month deal is still going on.

I think I've already received well over $200 dollars in content.

@Shadowbender

I do also, and I love it, got my monies worth long time ago.

@Shadowbender I've got it, too, but I don't see how Sony expects to make more money off of it. I've pretty much stopped buying anything off of the store and just play with what they give me for free, now. In the past 5 months or so since I got it, the only game I've bought was Pac Man, and that was for the gf. Having a psp helps make it more worth it, too.

@Shadowbender

I was a PS+ memeber for 3 months.....quit and got a survey as to Why I didn't renew....asked if it was because of lack of PSOne games or themes or cost and some other things.....also asked if I was offered a discount would I renew......I said yes but have yet to receive any other communication from them regarding the service aside from a "we miss you" email...

@Shadowbender

I know I'm not really answering your question, but if I had the money I would.

@Shadowbender

I bought it the 2nd week it was out or something like that. And sure I've been burned a couple months with games I already own, but this month has been one of the best. Totally enjoying Sam and Max. Something I probably would've never of bought even though I heard great things about it. The DCUO beta is not a bad game if you don't count all the glitches/bugs/freezes.

psn+ is totally worth the money to me. Discounts on games and even discounts on discounted games are good in my eyes. Especially ps1 imports. I have most of those games, because 6 bucks for 2 ps1 games is a steal.

Most of my friends don't have this, except for 5-6 people on my list. which is their choice. They can still play online and watch netflix for free with no worry.

@Shadowbender I was an early subscriber to plus, having signed up for the 3 month subscription, then kept it a month afterwards before deciding to cancel.

The content was hit and miss. Intially it was quite good and I really wished they kept that pace, but then it seemed like they had a hard time coming up with new content. I pretty much downloaded anything that was free and bought a couple of items along the way. I was a little miffed though to learn that 'free' games actually expire-- which I often download items to play later, only to discover I couldn't in some cases. It was also a little wierd to download a title and then have to download small unlock to play the free game. Some of the later free games were pretty crappy. I dunno, I'm not really interested in PS1 games anymore which seemed to appear more in quantity as time progressed.

All in all, I was unimpressed to pay for what amounted to me getting backgrounds, avatars, and demos. The pay versions of the backgrounds are far superior. Avatars I probably would never buy. And the demos I liked, but I just assume get those for free.

@Shadowbender

i have it, and even though i already own most of the 'free' stuff, i'm still glad i got it. little features like auto-downloading patches in the middle of the night make me happy.

@Shadowbender I do
and in it's first month it paid for it self with Sam & Max episodes :)

@Shadowbender

I'm a subscriber. On the first day of my subscription I downloaded discounted/free content with savings that added up to more than the prize of the subscription. At this point I'm sure the savings from it have been more than double the subscription price. So it's definitely worth it, IMO.

@Mcmax3000

They're differing monetization models, really. Microsoft easily could have chosen to go free ala PSN, but with the success they found in the original XBOX Live, it made more sense for them to charge a premium for their live services.

I think that Sony's approach towards PSN has significantly greater room for profitability than Xbox live's as it includes all PS3 users, but Microsoft's success with XBL is certainly undeniable.

@Mcmax3000
All 360 users can use Xbox Live too, they just can't use the premium services like netflix and online multiplayer.

@Gun Barrier

The fact that online multiplayer and Netflix cost are still laughable when they are free elsewhere...

@Mcmax3000 Well none of this should come as any surprise to anyone. Only AFTER Sony introduces PSN+, do they come out and can finally say after years of running the PSN service, that they can finally make PSN profitable.

What's really sad about this, I don't even work for Sony and said way back in 2006 when they said PSN would continue to be free, that it would be a huge drain of money on Sony until such time as they could find a way to get a large percentage of PSN users to pay some sort of fee for some aspect (any aspect) of the PSN service.

Of course back in 2006, Sony was still confident gamers would be lining up in massive numbers to pay $600 for a game console, so the money lost giving PSN away for free, would not only be offset by PS3 adoption, but would also serve to give Microsoft a black eye over Xbox LIVE.

Well none of that worked. People did not buy PS3 in massive numbers until the system came down under $400 in price. PSN remained free, but continued to drain money from Sony until they could come up with a monetize it without going back on their word (going back on their word, would have been a black eye on them), and Xbox LIVE continues to successful to the tune of well over $1.5 billion per year ($750 million of which comes from LIVE Gold subscriptions).

At the end of the day, whether you are talking Microsoft with Xbox LIVE or Sony with PSN+, if gamers want to get the full benefit of either service, they still have to pay money to get it. And that is something that I have been saying for years would happen in the first place. It is just sad that it took Sony years and years to figure out the obvious and put into action a business model that would see them make money on PSN - they could have PSN+ ages ago and saved themselves a lot of behind the scenes heartache.

As to the future of either service, there is a lot of potentiality for growth across both. As Kaz has pointed out, now that they have PSN+, they expect a lot of growth on the service in the coming years. No doubt a lot of that growth is going to be on the backs of PSP2 and the PSPhone, both which are releasing in the next fiscal year. Same goes for LIVE. Talking to retailers, among the long list of things Kinect seems to be able to do, bringing in new Xbox LIVE Gold customers appears to be another. I have no doubt Kinect is also moving a substantial number of Xbox LIVE Family Plans (or course those are sold directly from Microsoft, and we won't know how well that is going until official numbers come forward), but getting four LIVE Gold accounts for what is effectively $25 each, I don't know too many Xbox 360 owners dumb enough to pass up on that offer. So like with PSN+, there is potential for a lot of growth moving forward. But make no mistake, if neither company was charging some form of "optional" fee, half or more of that fiscal growth would simply evaporate.

@Mcmax3000 Well if Sony can make it work without subscription fee all the better for us isn’t it.

@Limit3d

What is it, a prank?

@Shadowbender

Yes, it's fake chain mail people like to do for reasons unknown.

@gold5225

"Reasons unknown." Now that's the sort of hook that grabs the attention of me, the viewer

@Dark Archon PSN Archonik XBL Dar
I find it difficult to call it a non ad-based service when everything you see is an add for another game. the minute you go into the store there's 3 ads. Walk into Home and everyone is dressed as a video game character or sporting a free shirt with a game logo on it.

@Dark Archon PSN Archonik XBL Dar
Well yes, but that's just the PS Store and branding. Still, there's online multiplayer, services and everything else that doesn't force you to look at ads while you play.

Not gonna lie, psn has really shitty avatars. And some costs $$ even though it's a complete STATIC image. Although they ARE trying to make profit..

@DigitalImpulse

Compared to what? The default ones XBL started with before it got avatars? Or how in the marketplace there were tons of crappy/low quality avatars being sold? I'm just glad they let you take pics of your avatar to use now.

Both companies have had their problems with avatars. It's just something they're probably trying out and learning from as they go along.

@RadioactiveQube

They cost "$$"? They cost like 10 cents. If thats "$$" to you then id hate to be on your christmas list.

@DigitalImpulse i was more than willing to pay 49 cents to get an 8bit mega man avatar

@DigitalImpulse
Hey, I use the yellow smiley-turd!

@DigitalImpulse

Automatic updates have always been free. The free PSN avatars are as shitty as the Xbox 360's free gamerpics. XBL charges more for their gamerpics and avatar items (240 ms [$2.50] and +, and the cheapest price of anything on XBL is 80 ms [$1]) while PSN avatars (even for PS Home avatar items) are $0.49 and +. Shows you don't know what you're talking about.

@Ballistic H
Something I like on PSN (as someone who mostly plays 360), is you usually buy 1 avatar pic for 20p and that you can see what you are buying, a lot of the themes have a preview to see them.. the amout of disappointment with (Xbox) themes & gamerpics, where you have no idea what the things look like until you apply it to your dash (luckily there's now a site to get theme previews)

@Billlop

It's not just for Japan. Sony is a Japanese company so the revenue is reported in Yen.

@Xpike in other words, release FF-X and have it render in 720 or 1080p on it, with trophies.

@Chris DPSN AggieCEO XBLThe Aggi

All we can hope for is a reasonable price. $50-60 a year is expensive, but they might do it just to match Microsoft.

Personally I'm hoping for nothing over $20-25 a year. I can live with that, even if they don't have every tiny little feature the competition does.

@sonicspike41

Agreed. $20 is a reasonable fee. Not now, because they have already offered PSN for free. Its like...

Imagine your a clerk in a store. Someone comes up to you and says, whats the best price you can do on this? If you say $50 then you cant go higher than that or you'd be laughed at and the cusomer would walk off feeling insulted.

Horrible anology but its the best i could think of. Sony have already offered it for free, they cant suddenly start charging. When the PS4 comes out, then yeah they can charge then.

@Chris DPSN AggieCEO XBLThe Aggi

If the PS4 has a charge for online play then I'm done playing online.

@sin2sin

I guess you are done playing online after this Gen....well Unless you go the Nintendo route......I seriously doubt they will try and charge for online due to crap the Wii had going on.....

and I agree....$25 would be rather competitive....especially if it just for access to online play...I want things like Netflix and all these other video apps to remain free....well with the exception of you have to pay to access the MLB service etc.....

@Chris DPSN AggieCEO XBLThe Aggi

I think it should be for online multiplayer and other multiplayer related features (think clans, public leader boards, etc.). I hope they finally add cross game party chat as a free update and never mandate a charge for it.