6 Ways Sony Can Maintain PSN as the Gold Standard on the PS4

PSUni: "As the Dean of PlayStation University, I love the PlayStation brand. With that being said, it's often easy to overlook the flaws of the things you love. This article is to serve as a critical evaluation of Sony's PSN.

This article is not intended to say that PSN is failing now, or that there is anything fundamentally wrong with it in the status quo, but if they go into the next generation without offering at least some of the upgrades I mention, then I have severe doubts for the success of PSNs future. In order to maintain PSN as the Gold Standard in console gaming, Sony should consider the following. Trust me, I'm the Dean."

[Snookies12]

PS+ has made the service 100X better than what it was, and it was already pretty great to begin with. Considering my online experience hardly ever had any problems with any game I played.
The only issue I have with PSN, is that it tends to disconnect a lot (usually when I'm not playing a game and am just on the XMB). I'm not sure if that's just because of my cruddy internet connection, or the service itself though lol.

[jaggernaut25]

I actually didn't even bring up Plus in this article, there really isn't much else they could do to make that even better. So, I think Plus is great already, like you said :)

I just focused on a few other things that should be addressed moving forward in general.

[Summons75]

How about actually giving free games when you promise FREE games. You know like games we actually own and don't have to pay to play every month?

[miyamoto]

they already did that many times

iNfamous
little big planet
wipeout Hd
modnation racers
super star dust hd
lots of ps one games

they are all in my 250GB hardrive
happy now?

[DSQD-Detox]

None of these games make me feel like PS+ is a mist have *edit: must not mist

[kingPoS]

Many users on psn+ see it as the same as netflix.
Who doesn't like tv shows games & movies.

Or you could buy each of the movies, shows & games on your own.
The choice is yours to make

[Summons75]

it's two completely different things, stop lying to yourself.

Netflix says pay 8 bucks and watch as many movies you would like in a month.

PS+ says sign up and get discounts PLUS FREE games. Free = once you do the transaction it's yours. It dose not say pay to rent games for a month.

[Tetsujin]

Outside keeping it online without random disconnects and maybe fix the speeds I like how PSN is now; for a free service I haven't ran into too many issues with players like I did on Live (Although some will try to argue that), and I like how PSN+ is.

The whole X game/party chat system can go both ways; as an option I can see people using it as a different form of communication, others (like me) wouldn't use it just for the fact of if I'm playing a game, I do not want to be interrupted with some random conversation.

My only real gripe is you can't download an update/game on certain online titles without letting it finish first; not sure if that's a RAM problem or something else, but I hope they at least allow downloading in the background while playing something online to speed progress.

[DragonKnight]

6. Party Chat- Already exists. If you mean voice party chat, then congratulations on making this a mediocre, "oh gee look what he suggested" article. There are so many ways to talk to ones friends these days that party chat isn't a necessity, it's just an option for people who don't care about the game they are playing.

5. XMB- If you find "Left, Left, Down, X" To be difficult and not user friendly, just go and buy a Kinect and talk your way through the menus. The XMB is not complicated, it's not difficult, it's not cumbersome. It's literally pressing the direction you want to go and pressing X, just like ANY OTHER USER INTERFACE ON CONSOLES. Another pointless addition to this increasingly typical list.

4. Openness and Microsoft are an oxymoron. Clearly the author of this piece hasn't bothered to read up on indie devs who aren't satisfied with MS nor read up on MS' draconian restrictions.

3. Only thing I can agree with is having to manually install a game yourself, but that only happens if you download it in the background, which is pretty understandable since you wouldn't want to have to stop your game so a another game can install on the harddrive. Speed is relative, for every person whining about how slow their downloads are, there are an equal amount saying the downloads aren't slow at all. The 4th pointless list item.

2. Security- This list item rendered the entire article unworthy of being read. "many users had their private and sensitive financial information stolen. This includes personal details and even credit card numbers." Lies and FUD. Troll article is trolling. No one's financial information was stolen and for a site called psuni.com you'd think the authors would know that that information was encrypted, and exactly what the hack was about. This article has officially been rendered mind-numbing to read.

1. Duh. The idea that anyone would suggest otherwise should be questioned as well.

Pointless list is pointless and the security point is trolling. Fellow readers, don't read it.

[iamnsuperman]

I never understood how people found the XMB dfficult to use. It's simple and straight forward to use. I just dont understand how people can find it confusing or a mess. Everything is in its own (logical) section

[DragonKnight]

Yeah I don't know. And now with Kinect and its voice recognition stuff, you're going to have article after article next gen talking about how Sony should implement it for the PS4's UI. Because at that point, using the controller would be too "difficult," "cumbersome," and not "user-friendly."

I'm with you. How hard is it to press left or right, up or down?

[sway_z]

@Dragon Knight

C'mon, don't be so dismissive. The Writer bought up some viable points, if a little under-researched.

Agreed on the security thing as was encrypted so no real threat to users. Although it was bad press at the time, not good for Sony's image.

There is nothing inherently wrong with XMB, but I agree with the writer in that...it can be very slow to do certain tasks, and patches, installs are seemingly endless. But the PS3 is such a quality product, I can overlook some things.

I hope we get a new U.I. with PS4 if only so it feels like a truly fresh experience.

But Dragon dude, go easy on people sometimes...we can't go accusing everybody of trolling just because we disagree with an opinion.

[DragonKnight]

I accused him of trolling because of the security list item. Anyone who knows anything about the PS3 and Sony, anyone working for a site whose name implies a lean towards the playstation brand, should never include such an obvious piece of FUD in their article. To include it renders your credibility null and void and shows a complete lack of research. And if that is true, why should anyone take the rest of that list seriously?

[sway_z]

I get your point entirely and I agree the article is incorrect in part or at least misinformation.

But you yourself could have chosen a more placid way of expressing your discontent is the point I was making.

A Merry Christmas Holiday to you though sir :)

[SkittlesLikesPopcorn]

@sway_z A civilized human being on N4G? Cut it out bro, you are gonna ruin the N4G image.

[shutUpAndTakeMyMoney]

was like this
steam > xbl > psn
now like this.
steam > psn > xbl

imo steam is just a beast.
who else today has steam workshop like idea & lets you vote for what games should and shouldn't be on the store(talk about power to the gamers)? They basically encouraging free dlc + big picture mode & free unlimited cloud saving.

but psn has grown well.
I used to be more interested in xbox and xbox live.
But now Sony has really shown me they value thier customers & want to maximize the value of my playstation 3.

xbox live is great but makes me pay for things I don't want & one basic thing I do want and that is Multi-player.

It's better that sony allows you just to be a gamer and not have to pay for a sh!t load of feature I don't care about. I am pretty sure ps4 will have a great youtube app & it will be free.

Just my experience in gaming.

[TemplarDante]

Apparently, if Sony made cross game chat, the whining babies would stop?
Seriously, I love PSN as is. Free multiplayer gaming. Im glad I was brought up to count my blessings, that to me is also having free online multiplayer for my favorite console.

The only improvement I desire is faster PSN store..
I know the new one is all modern and stuff, but I miss the old one that was more practical. So next gen, try make the store a bit more practical.

[kingPoS]

I kinda miss the old store too. You gotta wonder what Sony's planing for the ps3 after making the store into a separate app.

[dubt72]

You must achieve before you can maintain.