Sony to charge monthly fee for multiplayer games on PS4

Boooooo. Not so bad for us here in Japan, but one of the best things about Sony compared to Xbox is that it's free to play online. Why change that?!

Wait... Didn't they say before that online multiplayer would be included with a PlayStation Plus subscription? So this new fee is in addition to that?

Boooooo. Not so bad for us here in Japan, but one of the best things about Sony compared to Xbox is that it's free to play online. Why change that?!

Because it will result in larger profits, and that's what companies set out to achieve.

You might say that will result in loss of sales for PS4 and drive the profits down, but if you think Sony hasn't already performed meticulous analysis to see how this move would affect profits, you're being naive.

Plus online servers are very expensive to run. I'd rather pay a small fee for a more stable service. Nothing worse than laggy online gaming or dropping out.

Plus online servers are very expensive to run. I'd rather pay a small fee for a more stable service. Nothing worse than laggy online gaming or dropping out.

Yes, Sony could only offer free online for so long. Xbox Live subscribers tolerate paying because XBL generally offers a better online experience - that's what a paid service at least gives you, the right to demand better service. And since both XB1 and PS4 will be relying more on cloud-based servers to process more of the calculations off the consoles and increasing people using online services, will only raise the costs of these maintaining these servers.

I've been poking around the internets and it seems this story is a bit of a old news.

Apparently the online fee that they're referencing IS THE PLAYSTATION PLUS SUBSCRIPTION FEE, something that was announced waaaay back at E3.

So really, no news here... Just Nikkei either being uninformed or trying to stir the pot.

"Boooooo. Not so bad for us here in Japan, but one of the best things about Sony compared to Xbox is that it's free to play online. Why change that?!" you get what you pay for. I have both ps3 and xbox 360. and 99.999999% of peopel who own both will tell you the same thing. The online experience on the 360 was WAY better than ps3. Servers are not free. and Sony wants to be able offer the same top online experience.

This is old news. In America we knew this months ago.

Here's another source for clarity:

http://business.financialpost.com/2013/11/05/sony-corp-to-charge-monthly-fee-for-multiplayer-games-on-ps4-report/

Sony to charge a $9.99, not $5 monthly fee for multiplayer games on PS4, Nikkei reports

Sony Corp plans to charge a monthly fee of US$9.99 in the United States and 6.99 euros in Europe for playing multiplayer online games on the upcoming PlayStation 4 (PS4) console scheduled to debut on November 15, the Nikkei business daily reported without citing sources.

Sony announced at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in June that it would begin charging a monthly fee to play games online, but then company President Jack Tretton said that the fee would be $5 per month.

Multiplayer games can be played for free on PlayStation 3. Players must pay a fee on Microsoft's rival Xbox 360 console and on the upcoming Xbox One console. Those fees are vary between about $7/month and $10/month depending on how long the user orders the service for.

Sony plans to charge 500 yen ($5) a month for multiplayer games in Japan when the new console debuts in February, the Nikkei said. It is unclear if, perhaps, the Japanese Nikkei got the European and U.S. fees mixed up.

i don't play mulitplayer games so it won't affect me.. hopefully

Final cash-grab from Sony before the 'Steam machines' render all the consoles obsolete.

http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/SteamMachines/

This will prove to be another mistake by Sony

"Sony to charge a $9.99, not $5 monthly fee for multiplayer games on PS4, Nikkei reports"

"Here's another source for clarity:" no not really. That is just WRONG information. so it is the opposite of clarity. Sorry. But this is just plain BAD reporting. Lets get someones grandma who doenst know the first thing about the gaming world to report on this stuff.

I will spell this out plain and simple. if you buy it month to month, i.e., to try out a month it is 9.99 USD. If you actually buy 1 year at a time like 98% of the PSN users already do then it avearges it out to 5 USD per month. BUT just like Xbox live, PSN often offers deals. I never ever paid full price for Xbox live in 7 years. They often had deals like get 2 years for 60$ or 1 year 10$ off and a free game. PSN often, so far twice a year, spend 50$ and get 10$ back. That includes PS+ subscriptions. So you can get 1 year for 50$ USD. Which is $4.16 USD per month. Plus tons of free games. I have had PS+ a little over 1 year and downloaded at east 400$ in free PS3 and Vita games, and saved another couple 100 on PS+ sales disctounts.

What?!? They said they wouldn't charge for multiplayer unless you were after special PSN Plus perks! Might have to cancel my preorder asap...

Way to slander Sony, JT... PS+ accounts have been around for ages. Plus, not all games will require PS+ for online capability. I pay 500 yen a month, and love the service (hate the slow-ass browser though!). Free games every month = I should probably put a bigger HDD in there :P

This is like backstabbing the buyers who pre-ordered without knowing this info. Bad move Sony....a very bad move. It could lead to class action lawsuit in US for fraudulent marketing.

So I guess this guarantees there will be no F2P multiplayer games on the consoles at all, huh? My PC is looking better and better (and already has better graphics).

"Just say NO"!!!