They provide service for it... so why not? I'm more than OK for paying for the service I'm getting.
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I can’t believe Sony and Microsoft still get away with charging to play online.
- Thread starter Tophat Jones
- Start date
You get free games, a massive complex infrastructure and a bunch of other services and features on both - including is some cases massive cloud matrices. Most of the games on those are available on PC if you prefer, but sometimes those games are hampered by precisely the lack of the aforementioned features (not always, admittedly) and the first party exclusives are what they are. You can take 'em or leave 'em. As far as I can tell, both PSN and XBL owners are satisfied with those services enough to (in a significant majority of cases) renew each year. I imagine both sets of users would prefer all that were free, but there's really nothing weird about what those services are, or their cost. It's all rationally justified by the businesses and the consumers. And both also enable features for smaller games that may not otherwise have been able to include.
Why is this an issue? Are you also lamenting the fact that Snapchat has a separate friends/follow list from Instagram? (They're literally the same company even!). Do you then scream when you have to login to Facebook to speak to your friends there?
Its like $40 a year on sale, and they both go on sale a few times a year. I really don't see the big deal. The free games alone make it worth the cost. I sub to both PSN and XBL gold and think its worth it for both.
FWIW I dont think a gaming PC is worth the cost though. There are very few good PC exclusives IMO.
FWIW I dont think a gaming PC is worth the cost though. There are very few good PC exclusives IMO.
Yes Having multiple accounts is a huge pain and the one thing I really hate about pc gaming. I have credit card and personal info across 4 or 5 different services.
On my consoles all games connect to all my friends and all my games are purchased from the one store. That's a huge plus.
The funny thing about this thread is that I game on consoles like maybe 5% of the time. Lol
I think the problem many people have with it is comparable to DLC. You get a game, but after you complete it you don't feel like it was as big and great as you thought. Then 1 week later they reveal that cool DLC but you've already paid full price. Luckily this doesn't currently appear to be the case as most big budget titles got fleshed out story modes. You already payed a big chunk of moneys for your hardware, but they want you to give them more on a regular basis. No one says remove PSPlus for those who want it.
I am so not following what you were trying to get at. Is this actually in reference to the paid online services from PSN and XBL?
Plenty who not only defend it but openly think the value is incredible and gladly pay for it! lol
More people need to use shared accounts to access PSN. There's no reason everyone you know who plays PS4 should all be forking over a full $60. Cheat Sony like they cheat you.
kind of. Because you get the game right, but not the whole experience is included in the package. I'm not, in any way trying to discredit DLC's by the way.
PSN & Live subscriber here, both of great value to me and worth every penny.
Sony and micro they have their own system with high budget AAA games , I dont blame eathir one
Sony online services this generation are a lot better than the previous generation, you can tell easily that their services developed a lot, also after raising the subscription prices we started to get better monthly free games, not to mention it helps Sony makes more profits so they can afford developing big budget single player-only games like Horizon Zero Dawn & God of War without thinking about turning them to game as service games, unlike what Microsoft is doing with their titles.
This. So much this. Sadly we cannot influence the general populace.
There's literally zero correlation with what they choose to develop and the money you're shoveling into their pockets while claiming they're improving their services and offering you "better" free rentals. You defeated your own argument by citing Microsoft, even.
Thats exactly what i did. No more playstation plus for me.
my current question is: Would things be different if PC was a bigger threat to them?
:(
If playing online and getting 4+ games monthly for 60$ per year is not worth it, then what is?
The company is making a lot of profits because of it, think about all the company losses from other departments, if 60$ per year is enough to keep Sony going strong then they can have it from me, but whoever don't find it worth it then he can vote with his/her wallet, it's as simple as that.
If they did that, you can bet your life people would be on Era defending it
v v v
This. It's not actually $5 a month. To get the equivalent of that price, you have to drop $60 all at once. If people could actually choose to pay $5 a month here or there when they feel like playing a multiplayer game, it would probably be a lot more palatable to those people.
And yeah I know, it's not that much in a vacuum, but it adds up when you have multiple systems, especially now that Nintendo will be charging for online.
At least on PSN you don't need + to play f2p games or use party chat, so I guess that's something.
I don't recall Microsoft using online passes actually.
Well, I was talking of SONY themselves. I can't think of any Microsoft or Nintendo game on the 360 or Wii that needed an online pass to play them if bought 2nd hand, should have been more clear.
It was a bad practice that SONY did themselves and it would pretty rubbish to blame the likes of Codemasters for it. Like I said from Resistance 3 onwards it was clear the direction SONY was going in and that was looking to charge for Online play. Not that was wrong, SONY and MS should be allowed to charge for offering a service imo
It sucks primarily if you own both consoles. You don't want to pay online for both so you only pay for one, and that's the console that you end up using.
Meanwhile the other collects dust. My Xbox has barely gotten any use since we dropped live for PS+ in November; basically blu-ray/streaming machine
Meanwhile the other collects dust. My Xbox has barely gotten any use since we dropped live for PS+ in November; basically blu-ray/streaming machine
I might be confused about what you're saying, but Snapchat and Instagram are not the same company. Facebook and Instagram are, so maybe just a mix-up?
Don't most services allow you to import friends from FB (I know people don't trust FB now tho)? So that kinda fills the void.
No, you said that if you wanted to play a 2nd hand game on PS3 that you needed to pay for online access, and that this was only on Sony consoles. That's a false statement. I literally gave you a list of games on Xbox that required an online pass if bought 2nd hand. There were over 30 of them.
You then called people ignorant for telling you that you were wrong.
This. I have actually saved a bunch of money being a PS+ subscriber. The discounts plus the monthly games have me wondering why people claim it is such a ripoff...
I'm not seeing the issue.
I don't plan to renew my PS+. It is ridiculous. Especially considering you can play the same Xbox One games on PC online for free, but they charge for it on console. Both should drop it, and theres not a chance in hell I'll pay for the nintendo online service either.
I am not. I don't want some half baked hacked games. I want developpers to turn their games freeware. Even better, I want them to give their code for free use.
Some developpers are doing it, so why not everybody ?
/s
It's putting a paywall in front of online and in front of sales is not something that should be commended. You should be able to experience the whole product when you purchase it and sales should be for everyone. Hell I'd rather them add a dollar or so to game prices then charge for online. But its more business friendly to have monthly subs with predictable upcoming income.
I confused my social media companies (Instagram is owned by FB) and Snapchat is the separate one. But the point is still the same.
Some PC online clients (like Steam) can also import your contacts from Facebook, so... again the point is the same. Being fleeced is still being fleeced.
And again you seem to brush aside some people don't want to manage these things. Just like some people don't want to manage finding drivers for their pc parts, could be another reason why they like the simplicity of game consoles.
What's next, defending no built in voice chat when wet can all just use our smartphone?
If I think a service is good, I don't mind paying for it. I went online with the Saturn and it wasn't great then online with DC , which was quite limited but fun and the PS2 online service was a bit of a joke. When I went online with LIVE and MM III It was a totally different service and where the difference was so pronounced, it was worth the fee MS asked.
Its got nothing to do with caving in and everything to do with being happy with the service and the marked difference to what was on offer to its rivals. I think both PS+ and LIVE are good services, products and I don't mind paying for them. I see DLC as more of a rip-off as well as Season passes when one buys a game full price, you should expect all the content.
Whilst I see what you're saying, I think this perspective ignores the fact that PS+ didn't start being offered, with online play behind a paywall, this generation.
Last gen., when we did have at least one option for playing online on console for free, we still had the service that offered free games and discounts that more than paid for itself in terms of it value for money. If anything, I'd argue strongly that the value for money offered by PS+ last generation, in terms of the quality and scope of "free" games and discounts offered, absolutely shits all over what Sony has offered so far with PSN on PS4... and it's obvious why. By holding online play hostage behind a paywall, PS+ went from being a service that offers unquestionable value for money to the consumer but was optional, to one that was absolutely necessary to be able to play online but at the same time dipped significantly in its value proposition.
Many people in this thread arguing for the paywalls on the LIVE and PSN services are citing the free games and discounts as a key feature, however, once again, Sony demonstrated last generation that they could roll and additional service that provided all these without holding P2P online play hostage. I'd much prefer the PS3 version of PS+ than the PS4 version, because at least with PS+ being optional, there was a much bigger imperative for Sony to boost the value proposition with respect to the free game and discount offerings.
The issue is, the service =/= the subscription fee. Taking away the fee doesn't mean the service disappears.
The same XBL service offered on PC remained after MS removed the fee.
I think you and others are making the mistake of thinking correlation = causation, i.e. that MS having the better service is because they charge for it.
MS is a software company who specializing in that arena as their primary corporate bread and butter. XBL would have always been exceptional as a service whether gamers paid for it or it was funded through the Live Store revenues.
Equally by the same logic, Sony charging for online play during the PS3 generation wouldn't have made the service any better, when a lot of the issues with PSN and online play were more to do with the console and it own hardware/firmware limitations (e.g. limited OS RAM footprint, poor internet adapter + dodgy software stack). The service server backend during the PS3 era is the same; i.e. Amazon Web Services servers.
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Ahh yes, drivers. Those things that PC users did in the early 2000s before computers were capable of updating themselves. It's not like consoles have updates or anything as well.
If I wanted to go down the rabbit hole of whataboutism, I'd say: What's next, defending paying for those updates?
When i go to a bar i get charged for the drinks and when i go to a cinema i get charged for the movie.
Looks like i owe them money, because I never paid them anything for the right to do these things.
So if I pay full price then I should expect to get access to all of the content in the game? Even the multiplayer content? Agreed.
I'm actually not a fan of this angle. Maybe I've been spoiled by Steam in this regard, but there is absolutely no reason to put greater discounts (during sales) behind a paywall other than to entice you to spend money on said paywall.
I suppose getting discounts at launch for certain games is a stronger argument (similar to Amazon Prime or Best Buy's GCU), but not really for big sales (like Golden Week).
you haven't used a computer since 2005 have you
This is nothing new though. People on here constantly talk about how good GCU is, and that is literally just a discount that you pay for. Amazon Prime is something similar, where you get free delivery. The idea of paying up front for discounts down the line is a pretty common thing and generally people pay it because it saves them money in the long run.
People without PS+ still have access to sales on PSN, but PS+ subscribers usually save a bit extra.
But you already paid your ISP for your internet connection. Why pay Sony/MS/Nintendo again for the same peer-to-peer web traffic?
Remember when Sega did online for free with voice chat implemented later? No, because not many people embraced it back then. Then MS did it with OG Xbox and a subscription fee and it was the best thing ever.
I didn't know there was only 9 months in a year. My life is a lie.
I didn't know there was only 9 months in a year. My life is a lie.
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Things are worth what people are willing to pay for it.
- I can't believe people pay 100k for a car when a 15k car does basically the same thing and the speed limit is 65mph.
- I can't believe people pay 5$ for coffee at starbucks.
- I can't believe people pay 100$ for windows when Linux is free
- I can't believe it's not butter (seriously, people pay for this?)
- I can't believe people people pay 50$ at retail for something that costs 2$ out of the factory in China
- Et cetera
You already paid your ISP for your internet connection. Why pay Netflix/Spotify/Hulu again for the same web traffic?
I switched over to PC for online gaming, and barring some bad hardware failure during the crypto price gouging boom, I would not go back. Fortnite on PS4 is the only online console game I have played in ages. There is little chance of going back to either service unless/until the monthly games are ones that I don't already own and want to play. I can get more games I want to play on bundle sites for $60 per year, and that is only accounting for one of the console subscription services. Couldn't imagine subscribing to both at the same time.
How many ?, Too many for these companies to give users the option at this point. They've already jacked the price up and it will only continue to rise, slowly but surely.
How I look at it. Combine (for the US anyway) linking your PSN to Sony Rewards account, all those 5x points (even more with a PlayStation Credit Card plus the cash back on it), not to mention the even sweeter deal of getting rewards points for unlocked trophies, etc., you then can get PSN cards cashing in your rewards points. You end up not having to pay for PS+ if you game quite frequently.