Premium PlayStation Network Service Acknowledged By SCEE President
We'll be learning more about PSN's premium service "very soon."
By Chris Pereira, 05/26/2010
We've heard about a premium aspect to the PlayStation Network for quite a long time now, and it seems we've finally gotten at least some official acknowledgement that it is something that Sony is working on. Over on the official U.K. PlayStation website, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe president Andrew House answered questions that were submitted from users on the official PlayStation forums, including one about the potential for PSN to become a paid service. House made it clear that the current PSN will continue to remain free, but did say that a directive by SCE chairman Kaz Hirai has had them looking into premium services that we'll be learning more about
"very soon." House said,
"I can assure you that the current PSN as you know it will remain a free service. It is something that our competitors don?t offer and something that shows our loyalty to the PlayStation Community. However, 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."
That sets up a potential announcement at E3 quite nicely, but even if that is what's happening, we're still fairly clueless right now as to what a premium service would offer. We've heard conflicting reports over what would be included (or what it would be called), with potential features including free access to a rotating list of PSP Minis and PS1 titles, exclusive in-game DLC, PlayStation Store discounts, and access to cross-game voice chat. Some of these have been refuted and all could be baseless speculation for all we know.
It may be unrelated, but when asked about cross-game voice chat, House did say,
"...hopefully we will have an answer for you very soon." That could indicate it's something coming at E3, possibly as a part of their new premium service. We'll know for sure in just a few short weeks.
Source: 1up.com
