Right, some of you won’t want to agree with me here but there’s no use in pretending otherwise – Xbox Live Gold provides a more stable, reliable and feature-rich way to play online multiplayer than Sony’s PSN. I don’t think there’s any disputing that. But it costs money – £40 per year, if you don’t shop around.
[drop2]Now there are rumours kicking about this morning that the PlayStation 4 is going to lean towards a “premium online service” when it is (oh my god, we hope) announced later today. Those rumours suggest that the new online services will come under the moniker of PlayStation World, a name which will even replace PlayStation Plus.I think renaming Plus, a service which has blown away anything that PlayStation’s competitors could offer, would be a bit silly. The subscription service is not only very popular but has captured itself a well-loved place in the minds of many a PlayStation fan. Renaming it would be discarding all of that good will and brand recognition. But regardless, there’s a new slate here so it’s not beyond the realms of possibilities.
More interestingly, though, is the assertion that “most” of the PlayStation 4’s online services will be premium, paid-for subscriptions. Personally, I would have absolutely no problem in paying a fee, similar to Live Gold on Xbox, which ensures a similarly robust network infrastructure. With all the talk surrounding PlayStation Cloud – potentially the new name for Gaikai – there might be a lot more than just online multiplayer up for consideration when weighing up the virtues of any paid service.
So, the PlayStation 4 is widely expected to be revealed this evening. There probably won’t be a price for the console until E3 in June, at the earliest, but what about subscriptions and services? The entire industry is learning the incredibly profitability in monthly fees and microtransactions. What would you be willing to pay for and how much?
BULLofDOOM
If Plus remains as it is with a premium online gaming structure much like Xbox LIVE then I would certainly pay extra. Throw in free music streaming too and I would actually stretch to 100 notes per 12 months.
Having said that, and having changed consoles more times than my underwear, the Playstation / PSN experience of late is VERY close to LIVE in terms of online gaming, but improvements are welcome indeed.
Temascos
I personally wouldn’t pay to play online, I’m happy with bells and whistles being paid for if that’s what people want but myself and my friends frequently play PS3 online because its free. If it was paid for my friends wouldn’t make the jump and I personally wouldnt committ to it.
It should be something like – Free = online play. 1st Tier = PS+. 2nd Tier = Gaigai and backwards compat. Something to that effect would be great.
leeroye
Id be happy to be if it included the ps+ service, that way I would feel like i was still getting value for money, say £60 a year for only and the current plus sub model.
My only concern would be is this:-
Are sony capable of producing a stable online environment like like live?
colmshan1990
I’d pay for PS+ if it keeps up the games, so if online ends up included in that, I would.
Otherwise? No. I don’t play online often enough to use it. Maybe when all the 12 year olds who shout abuse and the FIFA quitters all go away, I might go online regularly again when that happens.
bunimomike
Same here, fella. It would be a tough one to justify as I barely play anything online. However, if I could sign up for just a month or two (when a GTA game hits the PS4) that’d be lovely.
cam the man
Same for me, I rarely play online except with friends, family and TSA’ers as I get sick of all the dirty play.
TSBonyman
I think a paid online service for those that want it would be ideal and might do away with tho eonline passes. Personally as a non-online gamer, as long as i’ve got Plus and am able to connect to the store to buy stuff, i don’t feel like i would wish to pay for anything else.
bigkingy
Having had an Xbox 360 and ps3, I never found much of a difference between them as far as playing online went, so it’s far from indisputable.
KeRaSh
No, I wouldn’t pay to play online. I’ve only ever tried two or three online modes on the PS3 and that was just to try them out.
I just hope whatever we have now stays free and the subscription would cover anything beyond that. I wouldn’t mind cloud storage for free but I wouldn’t get a full subscription just for that.
eye8have9you3
I like playing online, but don’t do it all that much, at most I tend to buy 4-5 games a year, say 2 of which I’ll play online. Given how long online communities exist for console games, I’ll usually be done with these by about the 3 month mark. As far as I’m concerned, the PSN works fine for me. Sure it could be better, but £40 a year in no way justifies the benefits Xbox Live gives. A compulsory subscription system like that is probably the only thing that would stop me buying a PS4
eye8have9you3
Also most of the guys I play online against are pretty casual gamers, how many people would stop playing if they had to pay and what effect would that have on the community
wonkey-willy
I’ve been saying it for years “ya gets what you pay for”
i think peter summed it up quite nicely..
don’t get me wrong i do begrudge shelling out for live but if you look around it can be picked up for £30/£35 even cheaper on eBay sometimes..
but having both consoles i can hand on heart state that xbox live pisses in the face of psn. and then some!
right i’m off to the pub!
skibadee
have had both seen no difference just Sony does maintenance sometimes.
hazelam
simply, no.
i would be opposed to any kind of blanket fee for online play.
many games are still peer to peer, so why should we pay for playing those?
if they want to charge for games that they run servers for, then charge for those games.
i don’t have a problem paying for an MMO, when the game’s good enough and i can afford it.
something like plus, i don’t have a problem with, because i pay, and i get content.
i would not pay just for access to online play.
i’d rather just play single player..
and charging would remove one of the major reasons why i choose Playstation versions of games over the xbox, the free multiplayer, even when the xbox version might have the edge in performance.
i might pay a sub for a cloud based service, i’d definitely pay for something like plus on PS4, but not for online access for every game.
why should i pay sony if i’m playing an online game from activision?
now i’m not saying they shouldn’t be allowed to do this, i’m just saying i wouldn’t pay for it?
is there really such a gulf in the quality of live and the psn anyway?
i don’t play online all that much so i don’t know, and never on the xbox, but is the psn actually so much worse than live?
or are they, barring a few features, virtually the same?
back in the early days of the PS3 maybe the gap would have been wider, but these days it has shrunk some surely.