I'm suspecting they will add services like Steam's Cloud. Where you can save and sync your save files & configurations online and sync them between different devices. For instance, being able to quickly switch between PC & PS3 versions of MW2 or MMO's like FF14.
It would be interesting if Sony expands it to a more Apple iDrive-esque route where you can save GBs of storage space for thing beyond gaming. Maybe allowing you to stream movies, pictures, music via browser you have stored on your online storage space, etc. Or maybe they allow digitally-distributed game rental service.
But whatever these 'premium' services are they better not be at the cost of core services. It would be a mistake to charge for basic online gameplay and delay demos like XBL Gold service does.
They need to add value, not remove value from their core customers...
"But it's unlikely that Sony will charge for the services they give away now, such as the ability to play for free online."
I'm not sure but is it legal for them to charge for the services they currently provide free? They advertise FREE PSN as a feature when you purchase the product (PS3). If they change the terms while you own the product you should have some sort of recourse to get your money back or be subsequently compensated.
@N@tedog: Yes they can, read the Terms of Service, they can do whatever they like really with the PSN and PS3. You technically don't own your PS3 system software or games even. You bought the right to play them with the condition you follow the TOS. This is the reason the 360 was able to lock hard drives and lock Live Accounts.
The short answer should be that Sony can change the service to a paid for deal without any problems as they are giving you notice of the change.
Your suggestion creates a few questions which do not seem to have been thought through. For example, what would be fair compensation? How could you determine the fair term of time that should be compensated for? What is the injury if no costs have been charged without the owners permission? What would be a fair compensation for those people who have enjoyed the free service as promised? Also, if you purchased the console and received the promised service for free and it was later changed, could you actually represent that you did not receive the free service?
In my opinion, a service provider should have more leeway to alter the terms of an agreement because the duration of the interaction period is longer (as opposed to buying a product which is a single instant sorta thing). Because more leeway appears due, I would presume that a basic position is that the fair thing would be to allow service providers to alter terms of service as necessary to continue to provide their service... unless the consumer is bound to continue using that service, at which point it would swing the other way.
To truly answer your question it is much more complicated than is appropriate for this forum. It sounds like you are combining a suggestion for a breach of contract with a false advertising claim. To evaluate these claims, it would be necessary to determine all sorts of facts and other matters. Ultimately though it is probably moot because, the agreement might, AND PROBABLY DOES, expressly provide for a change of terms at any time, with notice, making it totally appropriate for them to make such changes. This sort of language would be expected with a service like PSN because operating costs may change and financial situations might affect the parties (the consumer and Sony) in a way that would require an alternate business model.
This is only my opinion and not legal advice, as I am not an attorney, but only a humble law student and not capable of any representations as such.
@Ferrum.mihi: Okay. I understand what you're saying. Would it fall within the lines of a TOS revision from a telecom company though? Don't I have a certain number of days to cancel any contract with my service provider after they change the TOS? I feel there would be a similar circumstance in this case or am I way off?
I'm just thinking of an extreme case where I may purchase a device with free services that a short time later I am then charged for after a TOS revision. I imagine there would have to be some sort of consumer protection from that.
@N@tedog: Under your hypothetical, where Sony charges you retroactively for a service that you have already used under the impression that it was free (because it is currently advertised as free), I would assume that in that case it would be possible to make the cancellation or something similar to what you are suggesting.. **BUT**, that is a *very* unlikely scenario.
Retroactive charges are unlikely because it would create exactly the situation you are suggesting (and Sony would likely want to avoid that situation), it would create HORRIBLE ill will towards Sony most likely, AND, in my experience, Sony has a very clear way of changing the Terms of Service.
The first assumption I would make is that Sony will adopt a model of payment similar to Xbox Live Gold Accounts. This model has users pay in advance of service for a set rate that provides access to the service for a certain number of months, or, alternatively, pay prior to receiving service each month. It would not be retroactive charges if Sony sends you a bill for the Next months services. There, they are making the presumption that you want to continue service and so are sending you a bill to enable that, however, because they have not provided the services yet, you should be free *not* to engage such services by notifying them you are uninterested (or presumably by not using the services at all). Ultimately, retroactive charges would be the sort of fiasco that Sony should easily side step and is a very unlikely situation.
This is only my opinion and not legal advice, as I am not an attorney, but only a humble law student and not capable of any representations as such.
There is absolutly no moderation in some games. I was playing CoD4 at a friend's place (on PSN). First of all half of teh people didn't have mics when they did it was shitty bluetooth with ridiculous amount of noise and static. Clan names that has words such as f** and nigr.
@Gundem: My roommates clan tag on live is COK. You can't blame Sony for users not having mics or using inappropriate clan tags. Do you seriously expect Sony to manage the quality of everyone's mic? Because if you do, that's bull.
Microsoft does it, why can't Sony? I mean sony had the meanest censorship when PS2 online was abrely launched. I remember playing tiwsted metal black and there was no chat feature. however after entering some codes you'd get this basic on screen qwerty sort of chat. You couldn't even say "Hard one".
I, like others, don't think they're going to start charging for anything we've been getting free for now.
As far as early demo access and paid goodies for free, they do that already with Qore (Which runs on a subscription BTW so that system has been in place a while for FXIV).
Hopefully this will just be some subscriptions for things like comics, movies and paid themes(I wonder how well those are selling).
All my friends are on XBL so that's where I hang out. I don't see this changing anything for the most part. Game rentals would be pretty cool but if you have to download a 30GB game to rent it that could take a while even on my 20Mbs Fios.
Perhaps this means for folks to have the Netflix software downloaded on their PS3 that they will have to pay for the Premium PSN, much like Microsoft does for Xbox owners. Suddenly that Netflix disc is sounding like a pretty good deal.
Jokes aside, it will be interesting to see how Sony differentiates this.
@Chronocidal Guy: You're paying to play the games from their console on the internet, not for another internet connection, dufus. If $5 a month is too much for you, then maybe you should use your video game buying money for food instead.
@Xagest: I get what you're saying, but I find it incredibly hard to justify you finding it very hard to justify less than 17 cents per day for XBL. It's really not that big a deal. I'm not trying to patronize either. I do get what you're saying, but if you break it down it's not costing anybody a lot of money. One time, I was pissed because my Xbox died on me and I was talking to a CSR who didn't know S. I was in evil consumer mode and was about to tell the dude that I needed to get my money back for the days I wasn't going to be able to play with my XBL subscription, but then I realized it would have been a miniscule amount; really not worth making a big deal about.
It is making Microsoft a shit-ton of money though.
It is exciting this is finally out, but what I am curious about is why it took so long? Clearly this was not a rocket-science situation, both platforms should have had Netflix ages before it was released. So, what happened? Was it to get Microsoft to pay for the exclusivity of forcing PS3 owners to put a disc in the drive? (Wow, that was worth the price, Ballmer - putting discs in drives is almost as exhausting as shaking a fruit juice bottle.) Does Netflix just not have coders available? Or maybe Sony is paying for this program somehow?
Sorry, just my usual Friday afternoon round of confusion. #netflixps3
@irfan: Oh, open season is great - I would love a version of Netflix streaming for my Amiga 3000. 4096 colors is cutting edge technology and I so miss the Guru Meditation errors.
Uh oh, I am showing my age again. I'll shut up now. #netflixps3
@ajs237: I don't know if you're referring to the anime selection or the video selection as a whole.
I can't say I've watched any anime on Netflix streaming, but there are plenty of good non-anime titles on there. If all you watch is anime, I'd have to wonder why you are trying to mock people for their taste. #netflixps3
@WickedEast1: Bullshit. The amount of anime that reaches the US is infinitesimal compared to the amount that is actually released. There are gargantuan amounts of crap anime out there. There is some great anime, too. But your comment reeks of Japanophilia. #netflixps3
How many 360 owners whose consoles are connected to the internet don't have Live gold? It doesn't really cost anything if you're actually using your console at all. #netflixps3
@MarcusMaximus: I used this exact same excuse to get my wife to agree to me buying a Ferrari - I promised I would drive it every day so it really wouldn't cost anything. For some reason, she didn't buy it. Weird. #netflixps3
@ASchwarzenegger: Eh, more like saying, "Since I'm driving to work anyway, it doesn't cost me extra to listen to the car radio". As opposed to sitting in the driveway with the engine idling listening to the radio. #netflixps3
@TwoLaneBlackTop: Your analogy makes perfect sense since everyone who owns a car will be purchasing petrol to drive it. However, not everyone who buys a 360 purchases the online services. That is where the dichotomy begins.
11/24/09
11/23/09
11/23/09
It would be interesting if Sony expands it to a more Apple iDrive-esque route where you can save GBs of storage space for thing beyond gaming. Maybe allowing you to stream movies, pictures, music via browser you have stored on your online storage space, etc. Or maybe they allow digitally-distributed game rental service.
But whatever these 'premium' services are they better not be at the cost of core services. It would be a mistake to charge for basic online gameplay and delay demos like XBL Gold service does.
They need to add value, not remove value from their core customers...
11/23/09
They're not being very subtle about this, are they?
11/23/09
I'm not sure but is it legal for them to charge for the services they currently provide free? They advertise FREE PSN as a feature when you purchase the product (PS3). If they change the terms while you own the product you should have some sort of recourse to get your money back or be subsequently compensated.
Any lawyers out there?
11/23/09
The article mentions that everything that is free now will stay free.
Xbox also says free live. Fine print however mentions free silver live.
11/23/09
11/23/09
The short answer should be that Sony can change the service to a paid for deal without any problems as they are giving you notice of the change.
Your suggestion creates a few questions which do not seem to have been thought through. For example, what would be fair compensation? How could you determine the fair term of time that should be compensated for? What is the injury if no costs have been charged without the owners permission? What would be a fair compensation for those people who have enjoyed the free service as promised? Also, if you purchased the console and received the promised service for free and it was later changed, could you actually represent that you did not receive the free service?
In my opinion, a service provider should have more leeway to alter the terms of an agreement because the duration of the interaction period is longer (as opposed to buying a product which is a single instant sorta thing). Because more leeway appears due, I would presume that a basic position is that the fair thing would be to allow service providers to alter terms of service as necessary to continue to provide their service... unless the consumer is bound to continue using that service, at which point it would swing the other way.
To truly answer your question it is much more complicated than is appropriate for this forum. It sounds like you are combining a suggestion for a breach of contract with a false advertising claim. To evaluate these claims, it would be necessary to determine all sorts of facts and other matters. Ultimately though it is probably moot because, the agreement might, AND PROBABLY DOES, expressly provide for a change of terms at any time, with notice, making it totally appropriate for them to make such changes. This sort of language would be expected with a service like PSN because operating costs may change and financial situations might affect the parties (the consumer and Sony) in a way that would require an alternate business model.
This is only my opinion and not legal advice, as I am not an attorney, but only a humble law student and not capable of any representations as such.
11/23/09
I'm just thinking of an extreme case where I may purchase a device with free services that a short time later I am then charged for after a TOS revision. I imagine there would have to be some sort of consumer protection from that.
11/26/09
Retroactive charges are unlikely because it would create exactly the situation you are suggesting (and Sony would likely want to avoid that situation), it would create HORRIBLE ill will towards Sony most likely, AND, in my experience, Sony has a very clear way of changing the Terms of Service.
The first assumption I would make is that Sony will adopt a model of payment similar to Xbox Live Gold Accounts. This model has users pay in advance of service for a set rate that provides access to the service for a certain number of months, or, alternatively, pay prior to receiving service each month. It would not be retroactive charges if Sony sends you a bill for the Next months services. There, they are making the presumption that you want to continue service and so are sending you a bill to enable that, however, because they have not provided the services yet, you should be free *not* to engage such services by notifying them you are uninterested (or presumably by not using the services at all). Ultimately, retroactive charges would be the sort of fiasco that Sony should easily side step and is a very unlikely situation.
This is only my opinion and not legal advice, as I am not an attorney, but only a humble law student and not capable of any representations as such.
11/23/09
Do they always have to go fuck up a good thing?
11/23/09
11/23/09
There is absolutly no moderation in some games. I was playing CoD4 at a friend's place (on PSN). First of all half of teh people didn't have mics when they did it was shitty bluetooth with ridiculous amount of noise and static. Clan names that has words such as f** and nigr.
11/23/09
11/23/09
11/23/09
11/23/09
Microsoft does it, why can't Sony? I mean sony had the meanest censorship when PS2 online was abrely launched. I remember playing tiwsted metal black and there was no chat feature. however after entering some codes you'd get this basic on screen qwerty sort of chat. You couldn't even say "Hard one".
11/23/09
As far as early demo access and paid goodies for free, they do that already with Qore (Which runs on a subscription BTW so that system has been in place a while for FXIV).
Hopefully this will just be some subscriptions for things like comics, movies and paid themes(I wonder how well those are selling).
11/23/09
11/23/09
Jokes aside, it will be interesting to see how Sony differentiates this.
11/23/09
11/23/09
*goes back to PC*
11/23/09
11/23/09
11/23/09
It's still incredibly hard to justify when you can play the same game on a PC without the extra charge...
11/23/09
It is making Microsoft a shit-ton of money though.
#tips
11/06/09
What's so slick about any of that? #netflixps3
11/06/09
11/07/09
Five bucks says you don't own an xbox anyway, so getting rid of it is pretty simple huh? #netflixps3
11/06/09
Sorry, just my usual Friday afternoon round of confusion. #netflixps3
11/06/09
11/06/09
Uh oh, I am showing my age again. I'll shut up now. #netflixps3
11/06/09
11/06/09
11/06/09
I can't say I've watched any anime on Netflix streaming, but there are plenty of good non-anime titles on there. If all you watch is anime, I'd have to wonder why you are trying to mock people for their taste. #netflixps3
11/06/09
11/06/09
11/06/09
11/06/09
That's like saying gas doesn't cost anything because I use it in my car. All the time!!
It still costs money, just because you don't see it come out every month, you still pay for that subscription albeit yearly. #netflixps3
11/06/09
11/06/09
11/06/09
11/06/09
I am sticking to my analogy damnit!!! :p #netflixps3
10/19/09
10/19/09