News Publishers unhappy with PS3 bandwidth fees

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2009/03/20/publishers-unhappy-with-ps3-bandwidth-fees/1

Sony has reportedly irked a number of large publishers with bandwidth fees for content hosted on the PlayStation Network.

 

For a free-to-customers store/network, the money has to come from somewhere

that's a rediculous long-term cost though! Sony are soon going to find themselves losing publishers...

 

Was just going to mention the fact this is probably largely a consequence of Sony not charging for PSN use.

 

Sony really does hate games

 

It's a simple question. Who pays for bandwidth? Microsoft's answer was you, Sony's answer was the publishers? I like Sony's approach because I don't download much, I hate to think I'm paying for someone elses' download. I do disagree with the free stuff having a 60 day limit and the paid stuff a lifetime fee, shouldn't it be the other way around?

 

Sega Dreamcast all over again. Sony really screwed up this time...

 

No, because what you pay for is YOURS. You own what you buy. The free things you dont, its more of a rental which last time I checked you have to return rentals.

@tejas - not at all. Sony is doing a wonderful job at making a really good open platform. The PSN can easily surpass Xbox Live in the future.

 

Somebody has to pay for bandwidth and since I'm not, it looks like both Sony and publishers have to. As for XBL, Gold subscribers are paying for these fees.

 

So how do Pc games manage this problem?

 

Either by clicking on [banner] ads, getting a premium account [FileShack, FilePlanet,...] or not at all [Steam].
I'm glad, I'm a PC! And yes, I use Windows, too.

 

Okay if published don't like it they can **** off because I'm certainly not paying for online any time soon. If they leave its there loss, they'd be giving up a huge portion of their market and it would therefore be considered a stupid move on their part. $160k to a publisher is chump change isn't it?
one million download a demo costing the company $160k
The game costs around ?$50? upon release say around 300k are shipped at least, that's like 15million?
And the likely hood of any decent game selling more than 300k units is pretty high...

 

i say give it time and see what happens, publishers are moaning because free content is costing them, but lets see in a few years once the psn is properly settled in with developers and games a plenty and see what publishers say when their games are being downloaded online over the psn rather than distributed the old fashion way as to their costs incurred. plus if publishers dont go exlcusively to microsoft, they can enjoy the frills of not paying for bandwidth with xbl, and then paying a little on the psn...

peace

fatman

 

Personally, I prefer having to pay a measily £40 a year and not have developers unwilling to put up new content because they are worried about the charges they will have to pay. For the cost of a game we have a system that truly encourages growth and innovation, rather than trying to cover financial holes by charging developers. I'm not so sure Braid would have been on Xbox Live if the developer had to pay a silly about of money just to have it on there.

£40 gets me the most functional online service in a console ever, means that developers have a unified base to build on with the help of Microsoft, and means that the ability to play the games I like will be running indefinitely. I'm all for it.

 

its not that hard to make up the price, on paid DLC and stuff they can just add so much money onto the cost of the DLC e.g a file is 512MB so they just add 8p onto the price, therefore ther person that buys that DLC pays for the bandwidth they used as well. its not hard :/

 

Actually if you're a silver member (no fee) you can download demos, etc. fine, although usually a week or so later than gold members. No fee to the user, no fee to the publisher. I found the xbox live fees to be perfectly reasonable back in the original xbox days and especially reasonable now with all the extra stuff we have now.

The only thing the PSN charges to the developers does is make them less likely to release demos and the like on PSN.

Yes, because all the retail cost of a game goes back to the publisher doesn't it.

 

XBL Gold members are the ones paying for the fees that Silver members are not. MS is passing the buck onto the consumer. Both companies can look bad depending on how you see it.

 

What about all licensing fees? Registration fees? Fees that go into putting the game onto shelves? But most importantly, you have the massive employee salaries. That 15 million goes by REALLY quickly.

 

idea: use some sort of distributed system like P2P.

 

Then people will just complain that they are paying for bandwidth that Sony/Pubs should be footing the bill for, I for one don't have the bandwidth to spare at peak times thanks to VM dodgy capping policy.

 

I understand all those things need to be taken into account and should have mentioned them but I'm sure they still get a hefty price for themselves otherwise they wouldn't continue making games.
Like I said before if they don't want to develop on PS3 then they don't have too, they will just lose customers, and a lot of customers too...