selnor said:
I bet 10000000000% PSN will NOT be free next gen. That would be a horrible business move for Sony. PSN is free right now, and Live kills it every year in hours spent playing online. Available downloadable content is also much more active on Live. Sony need to make money from PSN to keep up with the R&D of Live. Dec 6th Live changes again,with so many features that the competition just doesnt have. An integrated search engine for a start. |
I'll bet PSN will still be free with the addage of PSN Plus and Sony will find more ways to make Plus more appealing and more personal to the PS3 crowd much like Xbox Live pushed the envelope earlier in the gen. To anyone who is smart they will notice Microsoft has made the 360 utterly useless as a multimedia device without the use of Xbox Live. Silver is useless and you can barely upgrade properly. Theres no bonus in making people pay for a connection they already have (I also feel bad for those with Netflix and dont have Gold). I much like many others know this because Microsoft kicks people off Xbox Live for modding and people are forced to buy new Xboxes if they dont just want to game without online. Microsoft is doing it because they can and Sony has proven that with their offerings on PSN with the addition of their PSN service. Nintendo has yet to prove Microsoft wrong, but Son definitely did it. Sony knows if they launch on time with proper games at a proper price the world outside of America will give them the first look over Microsoft. 3/5 of Microsofts sales are in America, so you know where there sales will be regardless. This case was the same for the original Xbox. Microsoft will also be making the 360 more available to everyone (not just gamers) and soon will make Xbox Live completely indestinguisable to their PC OS. Sony then can capitalize with the games like they are doing now. You can see where Microsoft is headed next gen with their recent acquisitions. They are too predictable. They are just business suits not a gaming company and every day they prove it even more. The only thing they've perfected is online community and once they set the bar others can definitely follow. It's not impossible. Their hump to follow Sony is harder because it takes more risk to have more first party companies and Microsoft has proven they can barely handle it this gen. Lets see if depending on multiplats selling more on their system next gen will help them. If Sony launches within their window it will force everyone to look at what they are really getting right out of the box.
P.S.
I love all the features Xbox Live will keep having. I'll have that whilst Sony keeps giving the more important feature.....exclusive games. No matter what Microsoft does they cant outshine Sony for multimedia. Sony is multimedia company, not Microsoft. Microsoft is an OS company and everything from watching movies on your consoles from Sony pictures to listening to music is first party. Microsoft pays out of pocket for something Sony already has. All Microsoft will do is keep on buying deals to shy away from the fact that they dont find investing in first party companies to be desirable since they wasted $400,000,000 collars buying Rare and seeing nowhere near the return.
