Sony: PSN Losing Money Right Now, Next Year Should Be Better

[SilentHunter7]

And yet Steam makes Valve buckets of money, without charging a subscription fee. Hmmm...

Why is everything compared to Steam? Comparing Xbox Live and the PSN to Steam is like comparing apples to Christmas ornaments. Steam is a digital distribution service. Its primary function is to sell games. XBL and PSN are online gaming services. Their primary function is to connect users. One will make a profit without subscriptions. One won't.

 

[Lucifer dern]

merry christmas sony, no witty comments, just thank you for taking that loss so I can play online for free!

 

[Lyri]

He said "Simple because people HAVE to buy games on Steam". Suggesting that there are games that are *only* available on Steam. I took your examples, and pointed out that they were not *only* available on Steam. I realise that there's some exclusive games on Steam, but likewise there's some exclusive games on Direct2drive (Split/Second), GOG (Planescape Torment), Gamersgate (early Paradox games, I think) and Impulse (Stardock's games).

Honestly, I think you read it wrong and just being too literal.

Your main point was

And yet Steam makes Valve buckets of money, without charging a subscription fee. Hmmm...

You buy your games on steam, you don't play them on Valves servers.

 

[Valagetti]

What does this mean? Psn will charge us in the future? Screw that!

 

[Mangue Surfer]

Sell DLC worldwide!

 

[wasalp]

And yet Steam makes Valve buckets of money, without charging a subscription fee. Hmmm...

yeah um steam doesn't pay for the multiplayer servers. I am quite sure that when people buy games and download them on PSN they make a relative profit even after counting the bandwidth to upload the game.

 

[Cid Silverwing]

And yet Steam makes Valve buckets of money, without charging a subscription fee. Hmmm...

Either there's a conspiracy going or Sony is just -that- stupid.

But if they start tacking subscription fees on the PSN I'm cancelling my account instantly.

 

[Lullabye]

Yes they will. I'll be downloading a ton of games over the next years.

 

[Rad Party God]

Meanwhile, the Wii has free multiplayer and they're not complaining for such things as costs and what have you, but then, it's an extremely basic service with no propper voice chat (screw you Nintendo, I don't want to yell at that thingy over my TV).

Back then, Sony said something about letting it's users make their own dedicated servers, why not let them start their own servers and thus, reduce the costs considerably and stop complaining about "money losses"?.

 

[faefrost]

Yet they'll never charge for their online. They'd be stupid to do so. What they need to do is give people an actual reason to buy PS+. The free games you get are garbage, early demos and access to betas/features really shouldn't be under PS+. Maybe having access to game developers in the form of live Q&A. Maybe actually releasing PSOne classics that are good. Maybe actually having the option to give direct feedback to developers upon beta testing games. That way they could put out a beta test fairly long before a game's release and have potential consumers give their advice on making the game better.

I've sort of long suspected that one of the major points of loss for PSN is their push for in house Movie and Media delivery. I have never known anyone that actually downloaded a movie from PSN, yet I assume there is at a minimum some sort of internal accounting that happens just for PSN to be able to offer even a SONY movie for download. So figure that the movie store has got to be a major loss point for the service. Either cut it, or bundle a Netflix like streaming subscription into PSN+.

 

[gphjr14]

If there was any real incentive to pay for PSN I would. Temporary access to games and demos isn't enough to warrant a subscription. I remember a Vanquish demo being up on JPN PSN and the same demo was only available in the US PSN through the Plus service its a ripoff and Sony is going to continue to lose money until they actually offer something worth pay for.

Ì think 15 euro for three months of PSN was well worth it, Abe's Odyssee, Kula World, season 3 of Sam and Max access to the beta Assassin's Creed Brotherhood and DCUO all for a 15 euro subscription. Not too mention great discounts I fail to see how getting games, demos and betas as long as your account is active is a ripoff.

I care for ACBH single player the MP looked repetitive and boring(at least to me). I fail to see how paying for something that is free in other region stores, and is easily accessible isn't a ripoff. If its such a great deal SONY should be making more money off of it.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

Yet they'll never charge for their online. They'd be stupid to do so. What they need to do is give people an actual reason to buy PS+. The free games you get are garbage, early demos and access to betas/features really shouldn't be under PS+. Maybe having access to game developers in the form of live Q&A. Maybe actually releasing PSOne classics that are good. Maybe actually having the option to give direct feedback to developers upon beta testing games. That way they could put out a beta test fairly long before a game's release and have potential consumers give their advice on making the game better.

I've sort of long suspected that one of the major points of loss for PSN is their push for in house Movie and Media delivery. I have never known anyone that actually downloaded a movie from PSN, yet I assume there is at a minimum some sort of internal accounting that happens just for PSN to be able to offer even a SONY movie for download. So figure that the movie store has got to be a major loss point for the service. Either cut it, or bundle a Netflix like streaming subscription into PSN+.

Yeah, it's kind of stupid to have both Sony's video store, AND Netflix. But I'll tell you the Sony Video store isn't just SONY movies. It's got TV series and a range of movies. Heh. Desert Punk.

 

[Ghengis John]

Well, they are already past the point of trying to charge people regardless now, it's one of the biggest USP of Sony for a PS3.

Well they do have "Playstation network Premium" out.

 

[vxicepickxv]

I'll have to remember this next time someone brings up the psn vs xbla arguments.

Companies aren't in business to loose money that is for sure.

If I were in Sony's shoes, I'd "accidentally" give everyone some perks for the Plus network for a couple of months, claiming that they can't turn it off until some later time.

Give it away for a few months, then see how many people buy it when it goes back off.

 

[Frostbite3789]

Meanwhile, the Wii has free multiplayer

Yeah, and the just oodles of online gaming that happens on the Wii. I see how that just costs Nintendo so much. /sarcasm