RF Generation Message Board

I read an article today about the Beta for the Playstation now service and figured I would start a thread to discuss our opinions on the matter.

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2014/06/20/analysis-sony-s-playstation-now-beta-pricing-is-overly-expensive.aspx?utm_content=buffer4306a&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

The biggest thing that popped out at me was that Sony seems to be allowing developers and publishers to control the pricing, leading to drastic differences in pricing among titles, but also the cost for the timeframes seems unreal. Just like it says in the article, renting FFXIII for four hours isn't going to get you anywhere. In my opinion, four hours with an RPG is called a DEMO, and last time I checked, demos were free.


Title                      4 Hours 7 Days 30 Days 90 Days Retail *PSN
Adventure Time       $5        $8     $15       $30        $25        $40
Alpha Protocol         $3        $6     $8         $15        $5        NA
Deus Ex:   HR          $5        $7     $15       $30        $7        $20
Final Fantasy XIII    $3        $6     $8         $15        $14        $13
Final Fantasy XIII-2 $5        $8     $15        $30        $15        $20
Guacamelee            $3        $5     $8         $15        NA        $15
Saints Row: The 3rd $5        NA     NA        $30        $21        $30
Stick it to the Man   $3        $4     $7          $10        NA        $10

I really hope this is re-evaluated and marketed properly, they have a lot of money riding on this, and I am moderately excited at the possibilities with this service even though I stopped my run with Sony with the PS2. (I do own a PS3, but have never plugged it in.)

Those prices are just horrible

I've been a part of the closed beta for a month or so now, and they finally added pricing within the past few days (it was free before).  The streaming part works much better than I thought it would have, but the pricing is pretty insane.  I checked earlier today, and there were a few free titles (mostly PS minis I believe), but I assume we're going to see some more free titles under PS+ eventually.

I get the point of a four-hour "rental", but just make a demo at that point.  I can't see very many takers for that option, but perhaps its a strategy to get people to pony up a few more bucks for the 7 day rental.

The service works well enough that it could be feasible on a massive scale (provided both ends have enough bandwidth), but the pricing is what will make or break PSNow.