Being free was always the main draw for the Playstation Network, and it even gave them an excuse for taking years to deliver half of the features that the Xbox 360 has housed since the beginning. As rumoured before the show, Sony announced plans to bring a premium paid for service to the PS3 which will give consumers exclusive content and free downloads for the duration of their subscription.
For $50 a year or $17.99 for 3 months (£39.99 and £11.99 in the UK respectively) users will supposedly get hundreds of dollars worth of free content, from free game trials of PSN and PS1 games to free downloads of specific games that last until the subscription closes.
Early acess to betas and demos will be included too, with free avatars and themes rounding out the exclusive content. The only new ‘feature’ avaiable to subscrobers will be to set your PS3 to turn itself on automatically at certain times of day so it can download the latest content as and when it becomes avaiable.
Heres hoping that this service will remain optional, and won’t affect the free content currently avaiable. Look for Playstation Plus later in the year, where the first 3 months of subscription will be free for subscribers.
Check out the official preview video for the service below.
