Sony's PlayStation Network: no-win situation for publishers?

SF Examiner weighs in on Sony's bandwidth fee for PlayStation Network games, calling the PSN a "no-win situation for publishers."

Edie Sellers of the SF Examiner and MTV Multiplayer's Stephen Totilo have been reporting on a sobering trend for publishers using the PlayStation Network. Basically, since October 1 of last year, Sony's started charging a gate fee of 16 cents per GB to publishers for users to download their content. Sony used to foot the bill for the bandwidth, but this is no longer the case, making publishers less willing to slate their stuff for PSN releases.

As MTV puts it, game publishers are not happy.

Sony's PlayStation Network: 'no-win situation for publishers'

This is essentially the payment cycle for game publishers on the PlayStation Network.

"Publishers already pay costs for creating a demo, a process that can run six figures. Sony?s fees add a new expense. For a demo that is sized at exactly 1GB and is downloaded one million times, that would add an extra $160,000 that Sony is now charging and that, according to publishing sources, Microsoft isn?t. That?s what could scare publishers from placing content on the PS3."

SF Examiner also weighed in the news, claiming that Sony is effectively driving publishers away from the PlayStation 3, giving a crucial advantage to the Xbox 360's online network.

In other words, Sony has effectively made putting anything on the Playstation Network a no-win situation for publishers.

Put up a big, glorious demo to promote your title? Fine, but it'll cost you a fortune every time someone downloads it. Gimp a demo and shrink the file size? Fine, unless it gets downloaded four million times.

And what value is it to a publisher to put up a beautiful 1080p demo of its amazing game if it can only afford to make it 10 seconds long? Or, worse yet, charge users for the demo?

We'll see how this plans out in the year ahead. Publishers will probably still balance their online content between both consoles, but we won't be surprised to see less content on the PlayStation Network. Who knows -- but Microsoft won't be dropping their user fees and doing the same thing.

THE VERDICT by McKinley Noble McKinley Noble's Avatar Sure, people can complain about Sony's costly publishing prices, but the PlayStation Network is still free. Not everyone wants to shell out $50 bucks a year for their online service, which should be FREE with a $500 console. While I'm wishing for stuff, I'd also like a pony.

Comments [28]

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slm90031

1st! Nobody wants to pay for online, but i do and I am glad it works so well (Thanks MS). Because of Sony's online experience (or lack thereof) I will not be buying MLB the show 09 and I really wanted this game.

denveraic

This is getting to be bullshit. Seriously. I'm getting fed up with Sony. Every news I hear pertaining to my PS3 is bad news. Can anything good ever come out?

ChokaDaChicken

Driving away publishers Sony keeps trying to drive away consumers Wtf apple had to open their doors and apps blew up Sony is just starting to Blow at least we got Noby Noby Boy ( sarcasm) inserted. I'm gonna watch Twilight which I just rented on my Ps3 hey it's good for something

DJKennethA

This is pretty disheartening. I love my PS3 and love that the network is free ( even like Noby Noby Boy :P ). But this seems like a lame move for them. It's as if they are trying to drive people away and put one more nail in the proverbial coffin. YAY! *listens for sounds of hammering"

Jlmadyson

As multiconsole owner I will be looking forward to another exclusive beta with Modern Warfare 2. Pretty much no reason for Activision to do one at this point or any mutli-console publisher for that matter.

rotor787b

in a way I think sony is doing us a favor because they are trying to keep their service free. Microsoft charges me already so thats how they get paid. But like I always said when psn becomes as good as xbl they will have to eventually start charging us too.

Existential_11

If I have to pay for online play, I won't play online anymore. I don't play enough online games to justify an annual $50.

Since we have blu-ray discs, why do we need DLC skins? I'm sure they can fit the extra skins in the 25 g of available space somewhere.

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