Sony has defended its decision to start charging for multiplayer gaming on the PS4, claiming that it's "hard" to keep the service running for free.
When Sony launched its PS3 console, a full year after Microsoft's Xbox 360, it had several advantages over its competitor. Some were tied to the hardware, such as the presence of a Blu-ray drive which could store more data and play high-definition video, but one was a book-keeping decision: Microsoft charged a subscription fee to play multiplayer online games on the Xbox 360, but Sony would allow everyone to play PS3 games online completely free of charge.
Sadly, this free service won't extend to the PS4. For the first time, the company will be charging gamers a fee in order to play online multiplayer titles - although it plans to sweeten the deal with free games, folding the charge into its existing PlayStation Plus offering.
"There's a ton of value in the [PlayStation] Network," Sony's Eric Lempel told press at a PS4 event this week. "We've built up the network over the years and made a significant investment, and it's quite honestly hard to keep everything [free of charge.] It's a massive infrastructure to run this thing, and now with some of these social features there's a lot going on".
Sony's PSN and Microsoft's equivalent, Xbox Live, now have much the same features, including online multiplayer exclusively for paid-for members, discounts and free games as a carrot, but Lempel said that PSN still has advantages over its rival. Chief among these is that all media streaming services will be accessible to non-paid users - although some services, like Sony's own Music Unlimited, charges a separate subscription fee. This compares favorably to the Xbox One, which locks its own to paid subscribers only.
The PlayStation 4 is due to launch in the UK on the 29th of November.
Andoid Games
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