Having been free to play since the days of the PlayStation 2, Sony have now confirmed that online multiplayer on PS4 will now cost money for players to use.
Surprising as it sounds, online multiplayer has been around forever. Back in the days of the PlayStation 2, online gaming was available particularly in games such as SOCOM, a team shooter not unlike Call of Duty. All you needed to play was an adapter and you were good to go. Then with the PS3, Sony wowed fans by charging absolutely nothing for online play while the Xbox 360 set you back by £40 a year to get online multiplayer. But now, with development and manufacturing costs mounting, Sony have made the decision to charge to use online multiplayer on PS4.
While that lead in sounds ominous, it’s not all doom and gloom (or pain and payment, as it were) as the benefits of paying for the PS4’s online play are great. Currently, there’s a service on PS3 (and PS Vita) called PlayStation Plus, in which you pay £40 for a year long subscription which then entitles you to a huge collection of free games and a tons of discounts discounts which are available and free to keep for as long as you have your subscription. Sony gives out massive PS3 and Vita blockbusters, indie titles and even PS1 classics every single month. This year alone they’ve given out Hitman Absolution, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning and Mass Effect 3, and that’s not even a a fifth of what they’ve provided, all for no cost whatsoever.
While the PS4’s online multiplayer itself is covered in the £40 subscription cost, Sony say that just like the PS3 and the PS Vita, they also plan to give out free games on the PS4 too, starting from launch. If you have a PlayStation Plus subscription on PS4, in the first month they’ll give you Driveclub, one of the most hotly tipped PS4 exclusives that’s in development (Driveclub E3 Trailer). A team racer that encourages both driving fast in exotic cars as well as communication and team challenges, with all of those people playing their free versions of it, you won’t be stuck for people to race.
So far, the full list of PS4 freebies that they’re going to be giving out hasn’t been announced, however, they do say that we’ll get at least one PS4 game a month after launch – as well as continual PS+ updates on PS3 and Vita. What we do know for certain is that if you have a pre-existing PlayStation Plus subscription, this will automatically carry over to your PS4, if and when you get one, meaning that you’ll have a seamless stream of free games coming at you for the price of a single title.
We’ll keep you posted as soon as Sony announce the rest of the PS4 PlayStation Plus freebies, so keep a look out for that on walyou.
Read more on walyou, PlayStation 4 Will Play Used Games, Uses No DRM, Costs $399 USD, Ready at Dawn’s The Order: 1886 kicks off Sony’s first-party PS4 exclusives
