DonFerrari said:
EricHiggin said:
This is why they should at least offer 2 PS Plus options, maybe more with PS Now built in. A Plus package with just access to online for around $25 per year, a Plus Premium package with free games, demo's, etc, for around $50 per year, and maybe a Plus Premium Now package for around $75 per year.
Some users will save and go with the cheaper option, but some will pay more and opt in for the all in one more expensive option. Overall the user base should grow bringing in even more money. This money should be spread across many sectors like hardware, software, online, next gen, etc.
While there are more than a few problems, I think the biggest issue is the lack of choice for online. 1 choice for $60 per year and that's it, and it's certainly not bare bones. If PS at least adds another option, or more, especially a much cheaper option, this should help. PS3 is the other problem.
Another question to ask is how much if any of the online price was baked into the PS3 hardware? I have to assume some cost was in there, and that online wasn't completely free, even if it was only a small portion of the msrp. While going from free online to paid probably seems ridiculous, you also got a much cheaper more affordable console right off the bat, but have to pay a fairly reasonable amount over the course of your online playtime on that console. Not to mention PS4's online is considerably better than PS3 in many ways. $600 was too much all at once, so it was spread out over years with PS4. PS was overly generous with PS3 because they screwed up and MS struck Live Gold, but they figured things out, regrouped, and presented a much more reasonable offering overall this time around with the PS4 ecosystem. It's not perfect though, as nothing ever is. Nothing in life is free unfortunately and everything get's paid back one way or another eventually.
Paying for online, even a lesser amount, would be worth it as long as the online system as well as overall ecosystem benefits from it, and could even lead to things like the end of mid gen consoles possibly. If PS can launch another PS3 esque console in terms of hardware and software improvement based on today's tech, for $399-$499, they should be able to go another 6 or more years before needing new hardware, like PS3. This of course would help devs and would mean even better things for games next gen.
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Sony won't do a 25 package for just online. That would mean very little people would buy the 50-60 for online and freebies.
Just look at the data. PS+ on PS3 got like less than 2M users with the 50 bucks for freebies and discounted games. PS+ on PS4 because of online got 40M subs.
If they separate the both, the one costing 25 would sell 50M and the one for 50 bucks would sell 1M, why would they do that?
Now if you want to see the options, PS+ 60 per year, PSNow 120 per year, both 150 per year that is more likely to happen.
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Well what about hardware entry price? PS4 left a bunch of money in your pocket in comparison and has led to higher sales in a much shorter period than PS3. Look at the PS3 vs PS4 total game sales (shipments) time period and clearly the PS4 has allowed for more software sales. Plus no doubt helps with that as well.
With there being around 37M subscribers, who's to say that with a cheaper Plus package next gen that it wouldn't increase subs dramatically? If 37M are willing to pay $60 per month, then you could probably double that number if the cost was only $25, leading to 75M subs at $25. Then let's be safe and say 12M at $50 per month, and 5M at $75.
That would lead to an overall increase in sub revenue by $700M dollars. Then you have to ask yourself, for those that decided to save $25 by going with the cheapest package, how many of them are going to take that savings and put it towards more PS hardware or software anyway?
If PS5 launches at $499, you are now in between PS4 and PS3 in terms of launch entry price, so it wouldn't be crazy to think PS would lower the basic Plus package to around $25 to make it more appealing to those buyers. You're also going to have a cheaper PS4 on the market for those who likely have been waiting for the price to drop because they have no other choice, and if you want to have a chance at a significant amount of them joining Plus, the base price will have to be cheaper.
The way I see it, is one way or another, the money will end up in SNY's pocket and will probably increase overall by hooking more people with a cheaper base Plus price.
