Sony Speaks More About Premium PSN
In a recent interview with Nikkei Japan, Masayuki Chatani, Sony’s CTO fields questions regarding the PS3 slim and the PlayStation Network. With the PSN growing to over 30 million users Sony is looking to capitalize exploring means to offer premium content in addition to the single payment system employed now.
Chatani elaborates on the current business model for PSN versus subscription fees or per-item payments.
When asked how Sony Computer Entertainment will maintain the ever growing infrastructure Chatani commented:
Servers and the like have running costs, and we would face difficulties if our business depended solely on the sell-and-forget model. After we sell the hardware, though, we continue to sell products such as content and services.
We expect to see considerable growth in digital content, such as game download services, avatar items and the like.
We can also accept payment in a growing number of ways. In addition to single-payment packaged software, there are also schemes like monthly fees or per-item charges. I think this variety of payment methods will bring about a diverse range of playing methods, too.
Are you interested in Sony’s premium PSN offerings? Let us know in the comments.
25 Responses to “Sony Speaks More About Premium PSN”
If they set up a monthly subscription package that allows me to purchase all of the new titles that are coming to the store, I’ll pay in a heartbeat
i guess depending on how much and wat we get for our payments
More options is always good news.
I WAS ACTUALLY EXCITED ABOUT Sony’s Premium Service unlike the rest of you, DON’T YOU GET THE LOGIC!!
*No Offence*
Of course Sony’s gunna start making a premium service someday, but not as much as Microsoft’s $60 annual payments!!
It’s probably gunna be £1 a month, just imagine in theory, 30 million people paying £1 monthly, imagine the income than just 0£ monthly, Sony just wanted that little of all of us, I’m SURE OF IT!!!
Sony has nice business tactics and strategies, I hope Sony sees this comment, if so, TELL THEM ABOUT THIS IDEA, I DON’T NEED ANY CREDIT, JUST STEAL IT!!! MWUAHAHAHAHAHHA
Big ol’ SONY have made tonz a cash, now they wanna charge us mnthly or yearly LOL. Theres no chance in hell if you pay you’l get a free roam of the ps store!!! We will still b payin for psn games and dlc! at best it’l b like xbx with their credit points b*******t! If yr ‘gold’ u get demos on release, if yr not you have to wait a week or so! i totally carnt see how this would b good in anyway! (apart from filling sonys pockets even more)!! They carnt afford to keep up their servers! WHAT B******T! lolol & U.K is still poor online anyway!! aLL THIS IS BAD NEWS! if DLC IS GOOD I’LL BUY IT! IF A GAMES GOOD I’LL BUY IT! Dont make me pay either way! Sony have always been so differant and about choices! now they seem to wanna follow the crowd!?! PS3 ‘LIVE’ AHOY….
………. £40 A year to play a game uv payed £30-£40 for!? + dlc etc etc…… Thats 1 reason i bought a ps3 at twice the price of a eggbox180! lolol plz dont spoil my ps3 LOLOLOL please!
and as for £1 a mnth LOL think if it was £40-£50 a mnth we all paid! Bet sony like tht idea more BalramRules! LOL
hello…
i want my PSN free & no hassle …
my biggest problem (like for so many) would be the zone. i have to use an account not even associated with my country. i can’t use my credit card & have to buy PSN cards online.
if they introduce a paid system, it must be an optional alternate one so that people like me can still use the service.
i bought a PS3 for the games, for the online content & sure hope this will be available for as long as possible.
SONY can go for a paid Premium PSN, but please first create an Another countries section with the possibility to use all type of credit cards except those already accepted on the pre-defined zones.
Else let it be an additional services & if my country is accepted i will be glad to pay, i’m already paying a lot for PSN cards …
cheers!
I think that, like others, I wouldn’t lock myself into paying just yet, considering we have very little information other than “we may do something like premium services to increase revenue.” That doesn’t sound like a plan for consumers, that sounds like business talk, almost like they’re feeling out how consumers react to the idea and just re-assure investors that they are intent on making lots of bucks.
As of right now I can’t see how they could release a product that is worth more than free to most consumers. They mentioned that they would retain the free services as-is, which means they’d have to make offers to consumers like “subscribe and get better servers,” but this idea fails because it would make two different communities–those who play on premium servers and those who don’t, and most people would probably rather be able to play with everyone, and would go for the free servers.
So, premium services would almost have to include download vouchers or game-related goodies rather than servers, considering no one wants a community that is split like that and no one wants to pay for servers and then play on the free ones to get with their friends.
I can’t wait for the premuim service i didn’t buy a ps3 cause the online was free i bought it for all the badass games and the best exclusives! But giving us an option to pay for a better online service is awesome as soon as it’s avail i’ll be one of the first one’s to buy this service.
Look out silver spoon boys ere! LOL
@Lemmy78
Seems like you don’t understand that Sony runs a business, and the primary goal of all business is to make money. Let me tell you a secret; for a long time Sony was selling PS3s for $80 a loss, and even now they still lose about $30 a system. In Sony’s financial report 09, Sony has lost roughly $5Billion in their “networked products and services” which includes video games hardware and software sales. So before you go on a rage about a BUSINESS trying to earn money to stay in business you should try to understand that if they can’t make money they go out of business. Then that means no more PS3 and along with it PSN. So if people start paying for a “optional” premium services Sony will have more funds to spend on improving PSN as a whole so everyone will have a more enjoyable experience. I do want to stress that so far Sony has stated that IF they do implement a premium service it would be completely optional, so no one would be forcing you to pay to play and online gaming services.
Thank you Desh! I was just about to type the same thing and I logged in and yours came up. You said it PERFECTLY! Some people need to calm down and wait to see what they implement. No one really knows yet. People freak out way too early. By the way, was it painful for you to read Lemmy’s comments as well?
If they made it say £40 a year and you could download psStore stuff for free they would make alot more cash from a ‘free’ user than a paying 1!, as theres alot of moneys worth every month added to the store!! Wonder how much £$£’s worth has been added each month?? i carnt be arsed to find out but i bet its quite alot!! Im sure premium will end up being radical and awesome but….
i just wonder what the free service will end up like LOL they say unchanged…..
I can’t wait for a premium service to come out, Sony has probably been holding out on the cross game voice chat just for it. I’d pay for a premium service without any delay.
P.S. Gatorjv, It did indeed hurt my brain
Thats right bad for commenting in a comments section and bad for buying almost everything sony have ever made! IM SORRY DUDES
@richy2k9 – They originally stated that the service that is currently available will remain as is and completely free of charge. Any premiums will be new optional content, and therefore should not effect your situation.
@lemmy78 – its really hard to make sense of what you’re trying to say, but I’m gonna take a shot at it. It seems that you’re under the impression that all the revenue generated from the PSN store goes straight to Sony, and forget that a large portion goes to the developers, who are not sony, and to the overhead costs of running the store. So yes, while there is new content added all the time (thank god), its not all pure profit content. Plus, no one is forcing you to get the premium service, it should effect you in the same way the new content on PSN is effecting you now.
@Desh – way to be the voice of reason dude. seriously.
Lets face it – if this makes them money, and they stick to their word about it being completely optional and additional to the already free service, this should kick some ass. More profits means they can pay more people to fix any problems that come up, and purchase more tech to keep the good stuff rolling. While I love the free playstation network, it is in no way perfect, and I support anything that will help it improve and do it faster. Especially since I don’t have to contribute money towards crap I don’t want, but I know other people will (anyone want a Home T-shirt?).
@BigWoop: Exactly. That is all that needs to be said. I don’t think any online service will ever be “perfect” though, people will always find something to complain about.
@Lemmy: No one is knocking on you, it is just hard to understand what you are saying with the bad grammar and spelling.
yea if I was knockin’ on lemmy, I wouldn’t have given a semi serious response
I’ve got a bad feeling that what I like so much about PSN is going to be long gone soon..
Now what I would see as a plus is a service that offered:
1. a # of video rentals per month
2. a # of themes per month
& a way to “Rent” games (single downloads say for 30days) a # per month
3. maybe other premium content now and then, including what now is Qore subscription
example would be:
2 movies (HD) or 3 (STD) rentals, 2 themes (reg) or 1 (dynamic) and up to 2 game rentals permonth for all one price $6 or so..
@ Captnstryker
$6 a month for all that for free??? lol
it will cost around $50 if bought them all individualy.. sony would lose even more money if they did that.
maybe the subscribers will get a 50% discount on all psn related purchases. or just dedicated servers. or a free streaming movie service like netflix.
Hopefully paying will be optional if you already have an account!
With all the mixed feelings all we can hope is that Sony get it bang-on! They normally do! Any debate is good for them! And hopefully good for us in the end!!!
Why have a Premium PSN when you have Qore? I mean Qore gets you exclusive access to content before anyone else while I think a Premium PSN will likely be features like voice chat and having better speeds at downloading among other things.
balrum rules I can not respect your comments.
360 is not a $60 dollar annual fee it is a $50 dollar annual fee with some occasions of being only 30 dollars.
Also there are not 30 million adult PS3 users nor are there 30 million PS3 users that have access to credit cards. Hell there are not even 30 million PS3s out there and the lack of infastructure in most games would make it impossible to really charge PSP users for playing online with a PSP.
Qore and Home should be enough IMO if they just stop pussy-footing with home and actually build it as promised.
How is it freaking out to hear about a preminum service? Sony dosen’t need it all they need to do is keep on doing what their doing at the moment in fact if they copied XBOX LIVE then the PSN would be even more disgusting as it’s almost tricking us into getting a PS3 becasue we get a “free” online service and we have to pay,
the idea that comes to mind is we’ll still be able to go online but only onto the store, you’ll need a gold account to send messages and go on PS Home and game online. You see what i’m getting at? A service like this would end up becoming a metophorical knife in the back of every user who supported the PSN.