Xbox Live currently has 23 million members, if we take an educated guess here and predict that just less than half of those are gold paying members we can then work on 10 million gold members.
If everyone pays for year memberships you are looking at Microsoft receiving around R400 000 000 ($53 800 000) a month in income. That is a figure that has surely gotten Sony salivating. According to the latest reports the Playstation department is still losing money and an $50 million a month would surely help solve that problem.
But the problem is that one of the biggest selling points for Sony is that it offers free multiplayer, something you will notice isn’t mentioned much by Sony anymore. So how do you backflip against and early election promise and not suffer from to much community hatred?
Well you don’t, you just happen to improve the service with some great new ideas and charge for those instead. Then after a short while you implement these new ideas into the online gaming environment and only allow the people paying to use them.
The first obvious improvement would be to add some cross game chatting and clan abilities. The ability to create and manage clans has been something that the Xbox 360 community has been asking for since the dawn of time and would be an easy win for the PS3.
Once you have people paying for the ability to be part of a clan then you can extend this to only allow members of this new PSN to be able to chat to each other while online (due to the different technology being used).
This would get a lot of negative feedback that Sony can manage by simply stating they are trying to offer the best service to their core demographic while still allowing the casual observer to play online for free.
Then they can drag in the ability to download demo’s, enter beta’s and receive free themes if you are in this new PSN level. Then take in the ability to connect to a custom Facebook API and early access to movie tailers to grab some casual gamers and you will be nearly there.
Sooner rather than later you have the perfect 2 tier PSN and Sony are smiling all the way to the bank.
So what do you think, far fetched fantasy or inevitable future?
Last Updated: May 4, 2010
DarthPenguin
May 4, 2010 at 09:09
Definitely inevitable future.
Sony are going to start charging for something.. they have to.. and your model is an excellent one!
WitWolfyZA
May 4, 2010 at 09:17
Ive been in numerous arguments about this exact feature. And it just isn’t happening.
Id happily pay R120 for 3 months on PSN with added features and stuff like that, But its as if Sony doesn’t want to go through all that effort, just to give us, the
customers the satisfaction.
I mean think about it… Every 2 or 3 months we get a FW update that spans over 200mb minimum that removes certain features, or adds features we don’t really want…
Where there is a blog space on their webpage asking fans what they want??? but never implementing it.
Insulting really.
If they plan on going XBL route , well then they need to change everything from the XMB to the whole interface. I just cant see them going through all that hassle
D4RKL1NG
May 4, 2010 at 09:20
Keep it free,because only poor people play on PSN.
Xbox live is a paid for service because only the L33t play on live. :ninja:
WitWolfyZA
May 4, 2010 at 10:28
says the dude who hopes to get host in every match just to get the advantage.
D4RKL1NG
May 4, 2010 at 11:21
Don’t talk like you know me..Bloody Agent. :silly:
WitWolfyZA
May 4, 2010 at 12:02
This is a revolutionary house!!!! Bastard!!! :tongue:
D4RKL1NG
May 4, 2010 at 12:27
Lol! Good fun!
Bobby Kotick is touching himself on his studio
May 4, 2010 at 14:34
Don’t make me touch you on your studio!!
mitas
May 4, 2010 at 09:38
i like ur model , seems logical .
keep it free to play online , however dont make me pay to play online with desent features …
and dont forget the tipping point it comming in *cough* november *cough* GT5
Daniel
May 12, 2010 at 20:53
This would be perfect and I expect to see this exact thing announced at E3 and if M$ decides to stop fucking gamers maybe they could do something like this by letting Silver members play online for free, and piggybacking on what mitas said I am certain GT5 is being held and has been held for a while because Sony will pit there biggest title against Halo Reach later this year.
John Lock
May 12, 2010 at 21:00
What Playstation Network needs is OPTION.
Something Xbox Live doesn’t have. With online gaming on the 360 you HAVE to pay, where’s PSN you don’t.
Lazyeye79
May 12, 2010 at 21:16
I wouldn’t mind paying for PSN as long as my non paying brothers and sisters still had the option to play online. If Sony were to offer some great stuff like: early access to betas, demos, games, etc; faster download speeds, cross game chat, and things like Qore for free, I would pay like $50 a year.
megulito
May 12, 2010 at 21:48
i can never understand why people are so hell bent on paying for shit its kind of ridiculous you are all under the assumption we need to help them make money because it will instantly transform the ps3 into jesus and win some imaginary console war. and this smarmy ass plan is the reason i dont even want the beginnings of a pay for play service while it is a very well thought plan and i commend him for it i hope sony sends his ass a kick back check. just because companies are desiigned to make money doesnt mean consumers are designed to pay its quite the opposite in fact we should be doing everything as a consumer to get more for less. the ps3 has alway easily been a better value for gaming that any system with all its versitilty multimedia functionality and as an xbox owner i can tell you the experience isnt that much different for going online and playing in fact ive found the most lag and online incosistancy on the xbox. and no i dont hate the xbox nor am i a fan boy but i believe in quality products straight up. live you are paying for an alreay subsidized service, there are ads all over the place and while that makes some feel like they are a part of some kind of community because the see the same ads i find it silly because its no more community driven than the ps3 the thing that dictates how much fun you have with an online enabled system is the friends you have that have it and obviously xbox had the lead and your friends had that because that was the only choice we all had but when my computer broke down and the ps3 came out that be came my center before all these face book apps i was surfing fb on my ps3 sending email and usin aim on it playing ps3 games with my friends in real life and talking about whats going on in home and what games are coming out and what we are playing sending pics the whole nine. and while cross game chat helps on xbox its more like a super smal convienience that helps between games but i almost never used it in games and have see other use it to cheat in game where normally voice chat isnt allowed. the party system would be very welcome but again is very insignificant
but the main pint is they have different pay systems a great pay one that appeals to one type of people and and a great free system which offers a lot for no money despite what many people think youve never been owed an update and even if ur paying monthly you wont be the roll out new thing to make their system more attractive period and because they are behind but if all you fanboys and gnerally slow minded people rally behind getting charged theyll charge you just like i would. sadly i know you all out number me because common sense isnt very common
angh
May 12, 2010 at 21:55
here: “,,,,,,,,,,, ………. ?????????? !!!!!!”
take it and use freely.
crapgamer
May 12, 2010 at 23:47
Sony is slowing taking away more and more things, they seriously need to change their slogan. No Linux, No Backwards compatibility, no 4 usb ports, no flash drive ports, no Free online play. I always said Sony would be taken more seriously if they had a decent online service, which they currently don’t. The voice chat is awful and nobody even has mics on the PS3. The interface is terrible as well.