Sony Plans To Charge For PSN Sony PowerPoint Leaks Plan For 'Premium Service' On PSN

During a PowerPoint presentation on Sony's gaming strategy for the
upcoming years, it was revealed in 2010 Sony plans to add a 'new revenue
stream' to PSN, and when Sony Computer Entertainment chief Kaz Hirari
was contacted by Gamestop, he confirmed that Sony plans to offer a
'premium service' to PSN, which one assumes is going to be similar to
Xbox Live Gold.
One of Microsoft's brilliant moves was charge money for the Xbox Live
service, and to provide brilliant cross-game support, compared to the
free and scattered online services of the Sony Playstation 2 and Sega
Dreamcast.
When the Sony Playstation 3 was released with online features comparable
to the Xbox Live service, PS3 fanboys in message boards across the net
gladly pointed out that PSN was completely free vs. Xbox Live's annual
$50ย subscriptionย fee. That is, until now.
Sony was quick to point out that even without paid memberships, revenue
from PSN was up in 2009, three times what it was in 2008. Revenue mainly
comes from extra downloadable content for games sold on the network, as
well as movies and television shows sold by PSN's PlayStation Network.
Hirari stated that all of PSN's current 'free play' services, which
include online play, Facebookย integrationย and Netflix streaming video,
will all remain free in the future. With all this, it isn't clear what
the 'premium service' will offer. Some have speculated possibly
cross-game voice chat, which a Xbox Live Gold membership offers.