News Sony to reveal premium PSN service?

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2010/05/18/sony-to-reveal-premium-psn-service/1

 

Sounds to me like you would just be paying for 12 arcade style games that may or may not be to your tastes. Unless these new features are actually worth £4-something a month.

Still, the Spotify type thing looks good.

 

As a 360 gamer, I'm happy this is happening. Microsoft will be forced to step up to the next level

 

Funny how it wasn't too long ago that Sony used to criticize Microsoft for charging a fee on gold membership.

Saying that, kudos to Sony for keeping multiplayer free. I hope this inspires Microsoft to include more value-added extras for gold subscribers.

 

I always thought MS should provide some sort of online game save storage that is managed by the user (no automation, the onus should be on the user to backup games saves, not MS). It could be either a specific amount of space or the most recent save of each game played
.

 

I can't understand why Sony would do that? Surely nobody would pay £50 a year just for the ability to choose a couple of rubbish games each month? There has to be more to it than that, some sort of catch to make us pay.

 

I always thought they should allow the use of aftermarket hard drives...

Surely game saves aren't very big though? Its hardly important data either really and its only relevant for the time it takes to finish the game.

 

Sounds to me like you'd forced to pick from all the dodgy stuff, all the popular titles wouldn't be given out for 'free.' But maybe I am just a cynic.

 

1. Angry much?

2. It's actually a great idea for Microsoft to implement something like Steam Cloud. Giving you access to all your save data from any Xbox would be very handy indeed. Would save having to transfer your profile onto a memory card and carry it around with you.

It could end up being a stand out feature of Gold subscription.

 

Steam Cloud is awesome, and the sooner other services go the same way, the better.

 

I would pay £50 if it *included* Spotify premium! F*ck the games!

 

Which is exactly what Last.fm should be able to do on the 360, hopefully this will give microsoft an incentive to implement a feature like that.

 

But you state the exact reason why they did in your next sentence: MS forced gamers onto Gold in order to play online, as well as download demoes the day of rather than having to wait for the grace period to run out. I don't see why Sony should be criticized for this because as of right now it can't justify the premium services for every user so it is giving an option that wasn't there before to the ones that know they will use it and would glady pay for it versus giving them more reason to jump ship to the competition. Big business for yah.

 

Its will take years for it to get as good as the 360. I will be sticking to that!

 

The Pach Attack over at GameTrailers foresaw this not many episodes ago...

I think this is gonna be awesome. I want more PSN games, just for casual play... I hope most of them are in the likes of Geometry wars etc, not just old PS1 games.

But yeah, the cloud saving should be something they could add on... Though, I doubt many people use different playstations for their playtime, thus keeping the harddrive sufficient for most people.
Where as Steam Cloud is very likely to be used more than often, as people buy new PC's, format their PC or have multiple PC's.

 

They shouldnt charge if they say its going to be free... but if you get better services by paying and they still do it for free then I dont see why not.

I've seen the 360 online in action and it looks like it has loads of features the PS3 misses out on like friends of friends for example! So simple but makes things so much easier. It doesn't look anywhere near as nice tho!

Lacuna has a great point.. I've never bought any of these £5 games since they look like rubbish cast offs produced by a mistake during lunch hour.. mayb some are good to pick up and play but thats not what PS3 is all about. I know its a games console for having fun on.. and if you have fun then great.. but to me its insane HD multiplayer stuff that I like.. COD Mod 2 for example. They cant make you pay for any of this stuff they're flogging...

 

True but M$ require you to pay online if you want any fun out of the xbox.

 

Doesn't sound like a good deal. Why not just buy the games you want from the entire library. Why limit yourself to a choice of 2 games?