14 DAY TRIAL // Sony detailed the tough decision it took to make the PlayStation Plus premium subscription mandatory for those who want to play PlayStation 4 games online, saying that the extra money helps the company improve online features and services.
The PlayStation 3, as opposed to its Xbox 360 rival, allowed game owners to engage in the multiplayer of their favorite titles for free, while Microsoft charged for that privilege using Xbox Live Gold.
For the PlayStation 4, however, Sony is adopting a similar strategy, forcing those who want to play online to get the PlayStation Plus premium service.
This was a tough decision for Sony, according to its Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida, who talked with CVG about the measure.
"What we internally discussed and decided is that we will continue the free access to online play on PS3 and Vita, so that's clear. But because on PS4 the online connectivity features such as second screen, auto downloads and share features - these are one big pillar of the PS4 experience and we will continue to invest in this area to expand and improve these online features and services."
Investing without getting any money from players, however, is a tough thing to do, so the company decided to make Plus mandatory, while throwing in different other benefits to make the decision a bit easier.
"If we keep giving away online access for free, the natural pressure is that we have to cut down on the cost to provide this free service. But that's conflicting with our goal of being able to provide very robust and great online services going forward."
"So we decided that on PS4, because we want to continue to invest and improve our new services, we've asked the most engaged consumers in the online activities to share the burden with us so that we can continue to invest."
Players can have a PlayStation Plus subscription and they'll get not just different discounts or access to game betas, but they'll also receive free games for the PS3, PS Vita, and the PlayStation 4, like the Driveclub PS Plus edition.