Premium PSN plans for E3 revealed

[Ares]

Premium PSN plans for E3 reveal, to cost “less than £50 per year”

May 17th, 2010 @ 13:09
By Patrick Garratt

VG247 has learnt that Sony is to reveal plans for PSN’s premium services at E3.

According to a highly-placed source, Sony will announce a large-scale monetizing scheme for PSN at the LA show, but we’re assured nothing planned will impact the service’s current free aspects.

A string of features will be revealed, apparently costing “less than £50 per year”.

Sony will confirm plans to give all subscribers one free PSN game per month, from a choice of “two to four” every month.

“If you work it out, PSN games cost an average of £6-9 each, so over a year you’re basically going to be breaking even,” said our source.

A streaming music application similar to Spotify will be announced in Sony’s press conference on June 15. It’s thought that this can run in the background while playing games.

Rumours that cross-game voice chat is being saved as a paid feature are apparently not true, we were told.

“I can tell you now, 100 percent, that that’s not the case,” our man continued.

“There’s nothing in the premium package which will gimp regular PSN users.”

The PSN premium services announcement is thought to be a major part of Sony’s E3 conference, which will also heavily feature Move.

It’s thought that a PSP2 announcement, for this reason, is unlikely, and will be saved for either gamescom or TGS later this year. Get more detail on that here.

[URL="http://www.vg247.com/2010/05/17/premium-psn-plans-for-e3-reveal-to-cost-less-than-50-per-year/"]Source: VG247
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They will charge under $73 for Premium PSN in the States.

 

[Serj22]

So you pay $70 and get free games you may not want, or ust buy the games? what is it exactly that they're offering?

 

[Ares]

Back in Dec.of 09 Sony came out with a survey to see if PS3 owners will pay for PSN and this is what the features were at the time which were in packages 1-4.

* Customer Service Priority Access
* Exclusive Experiences with Sony Brands
* Extended Console Warranty 3 Years
* Access to Beta Games
* Early Access to All Store Content
* Member Demo Sharing of Full Game
* Cross-game Voice Chat Access
* Full Title Trial - 1st Hour Is Free
* Token Wagering
* User-to-user Challenges
* Free Access to PSOne Classics, PSP Minis, and PS3/PSP Themes
* Discounts on Store Content
* Member Only In-game Content
* Trophy Alerts
* Cloud Storage Space for Games
* Online Music Service
* Online Music Video Service
* Automatic Downloads and Updates
* Loyalty Program Rewards
* Facebook Connectivity
* Catch-up TV
* Netflix Access Without Disc

So now we have to wait and see what off this list makes it 2 of these features can be scratched off Facebook Connectivity and Extended Console Warranty 3 Years. The closer we get to E3 hopefully more details will come out. For the amount of money they plan on charging they are going to have to bring it in order to justify the cost.

 

[its phillip]

If it doesn't cost too much and gives an appreciable benefit, then I'll most likely sign up for it.

 

[j_garcia]

The choices of free games will have to be good, not the crappy stuff that nobody wants that is always on sale for $5.

 

[Nugu]

I'd be more inclined to pay for a la carte services. IE I want to pay 2$ a month for online save game backups incl my copy protected saves, the rest can all just rot.

 

[j_garcia]

I am not too pleased about the copy protected saves. I own the game and the PS3, so I should be able to copy my own saves. Yes, I'd pay a few bucks to save games to an online storage like trophies as well, so I don't have to worry about losing so many of them like I did with my first PS3 drive.