Paid PSN Could Include Free Games, Streaming Music

Kris Erickson • May 17, 2010 • Comments ()

Sony is expected to unveil a paid subscription service at this year's E3, but their approach is likely to be quite different from competitor Microsoft. Under Microsoft's scheme with Xbox Live, users must pay a fee of around $5 per month to enjoy basic functionality like online play. Sony would leave its basic free PSN online service intact, but add value to a premium service through extra content incentives.

One possibility that is already on the table is access to the company's considerable back catalog of classic PS1 titles. A recent series of market surveys suggested that Sony might give subscribers access to all the classic games they want, as well as free PSP Minis titles.

Other carrots the company might dangle in front of subscribers include cross-game chat, free themes, wallpapers and downloadable content. Another feature that has been mentioned repeatedly are "tokens" which can be won and lost in competition with other players and redeemed for virtual products and PSN Games.

According to some industry sources, Sony may be planning to go even further with its content offering. One scheme would include a free downloadable PSN game per month out of a choice of 2-4 older titles. Another would give users unlimited rental access to full PSP games.

Finally, some kind of music streaming service is also expected to be part of the plan. This would leverage Sony's tremendous music catalog and could be of some considerable interest to subscribers.

What about pricing? Estimates culled from the various market surveys we've seen put this service in a similar range to Microsoft's Xbox Live, at about $60 per year.

Expect to hear more specific details about Sony's subscription PSN service at the company's E3 keynote this year.