And then Sony announced that a subscription fee is needed for multiplayer.
Trust me, the steep discounts and free games are well worth it. The sixty dollars pays for itself almost immediately. That said, I don't like that it's necessary to play online - or so we believe - but I do understand why it's happening.
I'd say the only downside is that PS4 will require PlayStation Plus for online multiplayer, but overall they have outdone the Xbox One.
Yeah, that's looking like it will be the case. This is kind of disappointing to me, but - and keep in mind I hate defending corporations - I kind of understand why this might be necessary. Keeping the service completely free has meant that Sony has been operating at a loss with PSN, which means it's slower to improve.
What keeps me from being REALLY annoyed about it is that, honestly, Playstation Plus is the best deal in gaming short of a Steam sale anyways and everyone should reap the benefits of it. I've been on board for a year and a half and in that time I've gone from an empty hard drive to frantically trying to finish games for space. This isn't even mentioning the discounts.
Seriously, I'd been meaning to pick up Sleeping Dogs, but just never got around to it, but right when I think I'm going to pick up a copy, it comes up as a free game on the PS+ service.
They f**cked themselves over and were too stupid to see it coming.
It's not a big shock to me. Microsoft are the masters of learning nothing from their own mistakes. Just look at their operating systems to see it in miniature. Every other one is a disaster; they screw up bad, try to make people happy with the next one, then when it works out they figure "well maybe we can slip this in here and no one will notice" and so on.
Wow, I just woke up this morning and saw that Sony have kicked Microsoft where it really hurts. Poor Microsoft, all doubled up on the floor.
All of this is probably going to change how the game is played in the future, too. You know how Gamestop has been transparent with their 360 shilling? I expect that kind of thing to change, now that MS wants to cut them out of the industry entirely and Sony isn't doing such. And what about game rental services? They're certainly not going to do anything for a system that is trying to cut them out too.
I've been cracking jokes about it all night, but when you get down to it, it is pretty baffling and hilarious that Microsoft was saying they were going to "kill Sony at E3".
Edited by dl316bh, 11 June 2013 - 08:27 AM.