PlayStation Plus: IGN's Thoughts

Since Sony announced the PlayStation Network, the company has been beating the drum that all of its online services were free. When talk of a premium PSN popped up recently, people began to freak out. They worried that the free PSN would lose services, that cross-game chat would only be available to those who paid for it, and so much more.

[Donny]

looking foward to it, great article btw ;)

[FACTUAL evidence]

I will not get Plus unless they add cloud storage.

EDIT: Why?

[SIR-DARK-HAZE]

ask "why" and i will tell you.

[RememberThe357]

Backing up the save files that I want to keep so I don't loss them when reformatting my HDD because if a freezing issue is a horrible idea! I mean who wants to keep those save files you put hundreds of hours into anyway?
/s

[ExPresident]

So your trusting a company to hold those save files for you without worrying about them getting lost/damaged etc? Yeah, thats guaranteed not to happen. I think Cloud Storage should be an option but don't put all your eggs in one basket.

I just upgraded my PS3 HDD and had 0 issues with the backup utility or my game saves. Rock on.

[Mskatrina]

sorcery looks promising n fun... not into harry potter but yeah..
and RE5 with move support, and looking forward to socom4 (which looks amazing btw)...

peace

[Faztkiller]

I'm Sold on PSN+ sounds like a good deal to me but I do have one question does the PS3 have to be online to play the games u download?

[T9X69]

I'm not yet, the first 2 months are to weak for my taste. Good question though, maybe since if your subscription ends you cant use the content, and I'm not sure if it will be able to detect if its active or not if your offline.

[Spenok]

As far as i know they havent said you have to be online for you to play the games. But at the same time it wouldnt suprise me seeing as how all the benefits are all tied to online in some way.

[KongRudi]

SCEE confirmed that with the Mini's, if you wanted to play them on your PSP, you didn't have to be online while playing.

You just needed to go online once with the PSP so it could register your PSN+ membership, and then the PSP would check the game's license against that.

I would think it's the same on the PS3-games. :-)

[DJexs]

Well you can't spell ignorance without ign and some of the members certainly prove that true. It is good to see there are a few open minded ones though

[Esena]

Just curious...what ones were ignorant? I thought everyone's opinion had some support behind it.

[ExPresident]

On like the third page where the guy complains about it taking 30 minutes to power down the PS3. Obviously he's exaggerating but seriously? I see no point in him bringing up the power down issue which I never even remotely considered being an issue. I was baffled at reading it.

[play17boy]

I said it once and I will say it again Music Streaming and Discounts/free rentals in the Movie store and I'm a yearly subscriber.

[Christopher]

And you'll be paying a hell of a lot more than $50/year for free rentals in the Movie store. For even $15/month, they'll likely only let you rent one movie a month. The prices they have listed are primarily to compete with stores like iTunes and Amazon.com. Not even Netflix can offer a unlimited digital rental service, and what they offer digitally is primarily (more than 90%) more than 20 years old.

Asking for free rentals is kind of asking for the sky, honestly.

[ExPresident]

I agree here. As much as I'd love to see a movie subscription plan with PSN+ it would have to be AMAZING for me to drop my netflix plan. I pay for the 3 movies a month plan and have the PS3 Netflix disc which is awesome.

I don't think Sony could beat that deal, not right now anyway. There just isn't enough movies on the store to get me to drop Netflix currently.

[Anon1974]

That sounds like a deal to me. Even if I don't get to keep the games at the end of the year, who cares? I got to play multiple titles for as long as I wanted for a whole year. That's worth the price of one game to me.

I never bought Wipeout HD. I never bought a mini (and never really planned to). I always kinda wanted to try these out but never bothered. With PSN+ I get my chance.

Plus I'm a sucker for Dynamic Themes and I was already a Qore subscriber. I'll for sure at least try out PSN+ for a year and then so how it goes.

[ExPresident]

Wipeout HD is easily worth the $20 they ask for it, if not a bit more. Its a full fledged game. At the end of the year just subscribe to the service again and keep all that stuff from the first year and look at all the stuff you'll continue to get in your renewed subscription.

Score.

[tiamat5]

Wish I could afford it. Maybe later.

[ElitaStorm]

a real gamer never say later 8D

[Keltik82]

You're right a real gamer doesn't, but the gamers wallet says otherwise.

[ForROME]

Im in agreeance, nothing about it WOWs me, as long as PSN is free to play online, then plus just doesnt have it, and to the "live, just works" I agree with as well, mic in every 360 box, community driven features, its a reason to pay 50, to me I look at it like this

Playstation is the best place to get Single Player experiences their 1st part games are bar none the best

Xbox is the best play to get multi player, live is the best bar non because of thier features they offer

I think PSN plus, should be a starter kit, a mic, 1 yr, and a really good multi player game.

[pork_chop_express]

live is full of ppl you constantly have to mute, if ppl are talking on psn they most likely have something worth saying.

[ForROME]

Doesnt matter, xbox from the get go had community in mind from the mic in the box to the network infrastructure, MS is better at driving the message home

[infekt]

Yeah.. I'm totally buying this. I think the freebies are great and we are told that Sony will deliver more in the future. Sounds good to me!

[Esena]

I dont get it. Sony says they'll deliver more in the future, so why waste your money supporting them now? Let them deliver NOW, not later. Unless you still haven't purchased Wipeout HD (which any hardcore PS3 player would have) this service is by far...not worth it yet.

[SIR-DARK-HAZE]

So they can boom you in the future. Sorry i mean WoW you in the future. If you spend alot of money through the ps store or planning on to its brilliant. But as i don't like downloads i cant make up my mind atm. Yes its a great deal imho.

[AK46]

$50 is a good price, I spend at least that amount on crappy games every year.

[lodossrage]

But now that I understand the basics I think this is a good deal. Think about it, at $50 a year, that's 1 free psn game a month, 2 minis a month and 1 psn one game that you get free for the duration of your subscription. PSN games alone are about $9.99 a pop. So that alone makes this a good deal.

Now granted, you won't have access to the FREE games if you let your subscription fade. But you DO keep any game you bought at a discount AND all the themes and avatars.

And I'm sorry but I'd take the FREE games over cross game chat any day.

[A LIVING LEGEND]

I see it like this ; What I am accustomed to remains the same,no fee,as it has been since inception.
What I could reasonably afford adds to what remains free...If I so choose.I can continue as I was or continue as I was with an additional fee and content.
You opt out,you still PLAY online.You opt in,you retain all previous service in and add additional content/features.

[IHateYouFanboys]

if you got a PSN game of your choosing every month, i would probably sign up.

getting to 'choose' 4 free titles every month, from a list of only 4 (big lol at that) titles (1 PSN, 2 Minis, 1 PSOne) means you'll just be getting bargain bin rubbish titles every month. i dont want to pay $70 a year for games i dont want, so i wont be signing up.

and minis? does anyone even care about them? maybe if there were demos of them people might, but no way am i paying for them sight unseen when all they seem like are rubbish shovelware.

avatars and themes dont interest me. i havent changed my avatar since the day i signed in on my PS3, and i dont feel the need to since noone ever sees them. themes, well i use pictures from my PC as my themes so the ones sony want to give me 'for free' dont interest me.

then again, i guess im not the market that sony are aiming PS+ at - PS3 fanboys. people who spend hundreds of dollars a year buying anything and everything on the PSStore to 'support sony'. these people will undoubtedly love PS+ and happily hand over their $70 every year.

[Phish]

So something they still haven't addressed - What if you are already a Qore subscriber? Apparently that doesn't account for anything.

[A LIVING LEGEND]

The true beauty of PS+ is that everything remains as is for those that decide against it.
That IS the beauty of it,imo.No penalty or fee for indecision.
Don't wan't ps+?...no worries. :)
They should do a trial period thing tho,give everyone the experience so that everyone can decide for themselves.
Yay,Nay,either way.Smart move.The smartest move however,remains Sony's stance towards newcomers and online play in general. :)

[Omar91]

i dont see a good reason to buy it just yet. like someone else said above me, the first few months looks weak to me. the concept seems like a good idea and hopefully they'lll expand on this but what i dont like about this is the fact that you have to pay to have your ps3 wake up and download so can game alot faster and not wait for the updates... i think its stupid to have to pay for that and its a funtion the ps3 should offer to everyone. but thats just me..

[RioZen]

alot of options ppl are really wanting thrown in were already being tossed around in the survey back in december 09, X-game chat, movie discounts, cloud game saves.

these things will make it in plus but when sony has them ready. they want this service out now to make additional revenue but it will gain features to stay fresh or it will die.