One of the slightly negative points to come out of Sony’e E3 conference was the news that a PS+ subscription would be needed to access multiplayer on the PlayStation 4. Online gaming for the PS Vita and PS3 will remain free.
This shouldn’t come as a massive surprise, due to the fact Sony are bringing in new online features like the share function, auto downloads and second screen abilities which, no doubt, will cost more to maintain.
Shuhei Yoshida said “If we keep giving away online access for free, the natural pressure is that we have to cut down on the cost to provide this free service. But that’s conflicting with our goal of being able to provide very robust and great online services going forward. So we decided that on PS4, because we want to continue to invest and improve our new services, we’ve asked the most engaged consumers in the online activities to share the burden with us so that we can continue to invest.”
We can expect to see the money from our subscriptions going towards making the PlayStation Network a better online experience.
It’s not all doom and gloom though. PS Plus will be offering “free content with instant game collections, discounts and early access to betas on PS4”. The PS Plus edition of Drive Club has been announced already, and gamers can also expect to receive high quality indie games with each coming month. That’s not forgetting the usual content PS Plus provides on the PS3 and PS Vita. Subscriptions will also pass over to the PS4.
As it is the benefits of being a Plus member surpass its £40 a year fee. I don’t think we should anything to complain about being a Plus member to access online gaming on the PS4.
Source: CVG
Eldave0
Good to know. PlayStation’s online offering this gen has been pretty poor (regular outages, huge patches, etc). Will gladly give them £40 a year if it means a better service this time
leeroye
I think the is the best way to do it. Plus is such good value already and will only get better when PS4 content gets added over time. I would much rather they did it this way than having a separate fee altogether for MP alone.
After all there are loads of people willing to pay MS £40 a year for online gaming alone, we pay the same price and get so much more for our money.
hol
Lose all your saves when your playstation breaks & tell me you don’t need plus? All that gaming effort lost, it happened to me & as soon as plus launched, I bought into it. The auto save backup is invaluable as far as I’m concerned, free games is just a nice bonus :)
arrybags
Completely agree with this, my PS died in November of last year, having PS+ allowed me to get all of my saves back pretty quickly.
Also because my internet connection is pretty slow it is so useful that patches are downloaded overnight, because when i want to play a game i can just play it and not have to wait half an hour.
stueeeee
I think as long as they show their doing something and have improvements (and no maintenance for a least a couple of weeks at a time) then it’ll be money well spent. U can still play online on ps3 which is great, and as long as the ps4 plus games aren’t all stripped down then I’ll be happy.
Now compare the entire ps4 service that we know of to Xbox. People who buy Xbox almost certainly are going to get some sort of subscription, and until e3 that was because they had to because Microsoft said so. Their 360 online was far better that ps3 granted. And probably will be very good on Xbox one. But with the £40 a year, u get so much more from Sony. Microsoft have just come out with their IGC, 2 games on 360 that are years old. Will they even do free games on Xbox one? Coupled together with the DRM fiasco!
I’m thinking this is 2006 all over again, but Microsoft are the arrogant Sony!
Wardy-77-
I’ve had Plus since the start and wouldn’t be without it brilliant service and this is just an extra plus if it helps towards a better service.
JBoo
Well i guess SONY had to give the internet something to moan about the PS4 LoL:D
I don’t think i will pay it. I hardly play online anyway but PS+ is quite good so maybe if SONY throw in some free Streaming PS1/2/3 games in a month to i might do it(but god knows how long it’s going to take them to get the Streaming gaming thing going Worldwide(that was the only other 1 thing that disappointed me this week, no ready PS streaming games at all at launch) :( knowing SONY) :D
Dar-Kaus
I am already a plus user and it was probaly the best upgrade I have every made given the amount of games and discounts I have benefited from. Recently I just signed up for 60mb with Virgin in readiness for PS4, but until Mike just pointed out the fact, I wasn’t aware Sony throttled their downloads, so I guess I shouldn’t expect to see that upload bar move too fast then once I have my new broadband.
gazzagb
I wish there was a cheaper sub just for online play, I don’t care about the free games, most I’m either not interested in, or have already got. I don’t care that I get xyz games free, I’m still having to spend £50 or whatever it is for a sub that I don’t really need.
hazelam
if they were solely charging for online play, and access to the media apps like ms do, i can tell you, i wouldn’t be a subscriber.
paying for one sub so you can access the app for another paid sub is just ludicrous.
maybe if i was more into online play, i might feel differently,
but with plus giving so much content for the money, i honestly don’t mind so much.
it’s a shame free online play is not gonna be a feature of PS4, but i can understand why it isn’t.
and if it can lead to genuine improvements, then maybe it’s not so bad.