Sony Entertainment UK Boss, Fergal Gara has said that charging for online multiplayer on the PS4 â which will be the first time Sony has taken this route â helped reduce the overall price of the console, although he then stated that it was something that Sony had to âagonize over for a very long timeâ
On the PS4, online multiplayer is now integrated into the PlayStation Plus network. This means that for most games, if you want to play others over the internet, youâll need to be a Plus subscriber. However, PS+ appears to be great value for the money, and most gamers really didn’t have that much to complain about when all the details were revealed at last weekâs E3 Conference.
âFirst of all,â says Gara, âwe wanted to introduce the console at a healthy price-point compared with PS3,â and that was apparently âfront and centre in our thinking and our planning for years.â
Charging for online, or at least bundling it within Plus, will mean that the service can more realistically approach the levels that Xbox Live does. Gara says that PSN will mirror âthe social features you’ve seen demonstrated on more of a world-class networkâ and has seen Sony âinvesting in a higher performance networkâ that will offer âbetter performance and reliabilityâ.
As well as talking about PlayStation Plus, Gara also confirmed some of the rumors that have been floating around in recent press releases concerning cross-game chat. This means the ability to talk to those who are not playing the same game as you, or is in a different team to yourself. Gara simply said, âItâs thereâ.
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Watch the entire PS4 E3 Conference above.Â