A thread for PS3 owners Here

[Blunt]

And then you get adverts which have nothing to do with games.

The wired blog piece mentioned adverts for GH:Aerosmith and MGS4.

[cassidy]

you are having a laugh. WTF are they thinking?

[Monkichi 3.0]

Demos themselves are a form of advertising of course, so this is a bit like paying for those free samples you get in supermarkets, you know, the free glass of wine or sausage canape etc. I have to admit, I admire Sony for pulling this off, and they will pull it off. They're basically charging people for something most companies try and give away, charging people so that they can tell them "Hey, buy this game!". Fantastic stuff.

The wired blog piece mentioned adverts for GH:Aerosmith and MGS4.

And Burger King. Basically anyone who is willing to stump up the cash.

[footle]

What I'm impressed by is that Future have found a way to rescue The Official Playstation Magazine in all but name.

All anyone can ever have bought it for is the demos, surely; and free demos == fewer sales of the mag...

Xbox Live Silver Membership ftw.

[Cyhwuhx]

What I'm impressed by is that Future have found a way to rescue The Official Playstation Magazine in all but name.

All anyone can ever have bought it for is the demos, surely; and free demos == fewer sales of the mag...

Xbox Live Silver Membership ftw.

.::: This is why the US OPM was taken down. For the moment this is US only. And I really hope it stays that way.

[Afternoon Delight]

Reminds me of this pic I saw. Numpties.

[Monkichi 3.0]

What I'm impressed by is that Future have found a way to rescue The Official Playstation Magazine in all but name.

All anyone can ever have bought it for is the demos, surely; and free demos == fewer sales of the mag...

Xbox Live Silver Membership ftw.

Yeah, it's pretty impressive. It's on par with Royal Mail somehow getting you to pay them so that they can deliver junk mail to you.

[delb2k]

Thing is LIVE already does this to a degree, demos are locked out for silver users aint they? For around a week or so?

So that aspect is not new, if they extend this to other content that is a stupid idea as your cutting off revenue for yourself and if they extend this even further to game add ons thats even more stupid as your going to segment your community.

I think the problem here is the way they have dressed it up, effectively wrapping up a gold and silver service into a some form of subscription e-zine.

Thing is if this was free it would be great, a real feather in the cap and the next step from the inside xbox updates that come out but instead it just feels like there fleecing you for cash so you can get that next big thing.

[footle]

Thing is LIVE already does this to a degree, demos are locked out for silver users aint they? For around a week or so?

Some.

So that aspect is not new, if they extend this to other content that is a stupid idea as your cutting off revenue for yourself and if they extend this even further to game add ons thats even more stupid as your going to segment your community.

Whether it's a "new" idea or not is somewhat irrelevant. It was a pretty stupid idea with the Xbox Live service; mitigated only by the fact that most of the forumites already have a Gold Live subscription... so the xboxites didn't moan too much (the SonyLoLMob obviously pointed out it was rubbish, but had to deal with the fact that the PSN was pretty much empty of demos - worse then than it is now).

It's made that bit more annoying by Sony's repeated comments about the importance of a free online service.

Anyway - the Super Stardust Solo Pack - fantastic or what?

[Monkichi 3.0]

I think the difference with Live here is that the Live membership is really about the multiplayer aspect, not the demos etc. I think the early demo* bonus on Gold account was just done to give the illusion of extra value, for when you're going through a period that you're not playing online much and may question why you have a Gold account. The PSN thing is bizarre because the content seems to be pretty much exlusively marketing stuff.

*They're not early demos at all, the demo is released at the time it was always going to be released. The Silver accounts essentially get late demos. It's not like a publisher works their demo towards a Gold and Silver deadline.

[Uzi]

Oh man. Now when a demo comes out for dual platforms I no longer have to scratch my chin wondering which one to get.

It's true that some demos on Live are locked out for a week on silver, but you're not paying for gold to access them specfically. Most people are on gold and if they aren't, theres a ton of 48 hour codes, 1 month codes and even setting up a new account should still give 1 month gold free. You can even get a download of the demo on a bog standard dvd-r and play it.

This seems like theres no way around it but to pay. Pay for stuff we've become used to being free? Absolutely nuts. And I assume its both EU/US entirely so theres no logging into different PSN's to get stuff.

[Wickedkitten]

I'll just paste what I put in Phelans thread.

It's cheaper than a mag sub and you also get calling all cars free. I might take them up on a month to see how it is, it's not like £1.50 is exactly breaking the bank.

[Blunt]

And I assume its both EU/US entirely so theres no logging into different PSN's to get stuff.

US only so far.

And looking at the press releases, nowhere does it say that from now on you'll only be able to get demos by paying (there's a bit in the Wired blog where it says that 80 to 90 percent of the content will be exclusive, but as far as we know that might only concern all the video and promotional stuff).

[murray]

I think it'll be more than £1.50 in the UK, I reckon £3.

[Uzi]

I'll just paste what I put in Phelans thread.

It's cheaper than a mag sub and you also get calling all cars free. I might take them up on a month to see how it is, it's not like £1.50 is exactly breaking the bank.

That's an optimistic way to look at it. Not sure why a free game lessens the blow (considering Nintendo gave away its net channel free for a while on the wii and I own about 5 free live arcade games).It's something that used to be entirely free and hopefully still will be on other platforms (PC/360)

[Uzi]

US only so far.

And looking at the press releases, nowhere does it say that from now on you'll only be able to get demos by paying (there's a bit in the Wired blog where it says that 80 to 90 percent of the content will be exclusive, but as far as we know that might only concern all the video and promotional stuff).

It has to have some of the best stuff to get people paying. As soon as they say Little Big Planet / Resistance 2 demo exclusive only here, a lot of us and others will end up paying. I know I would

[Wickedkitten]

That's an optimistic way to look at it. Not sure why a free game lessens the blow (considering Nintendo gave away its net channel free for a while on the wii and I own about 5 free live arcade games).It's something that used to be entirely free and hopefully still will be on other platforms (PC/360)

Because it's actually meant to be a good free game rather than Undertow or whatever the hell that rubbish game that MS gave away after the Christmas Live downtime fiasco was called.

[murray]

It has to have some of the best stuff to get people paying. As soon as they say Little Big Planet / Resistance 2 demo exclusive only here, a lot of us and others will end up paying. I know I would

Oh man.

I'm gonna break, aren't I?

[Twyford]

I think it'll be more than £1.50 in the UK, I reckon £3.

I reckon £2.49 per month with a £19.99 option for the year. Which I suspect an awful lot of people will pay for, myself included

[delb2k]

Some.

Whether it's a "new" idea or not is somewhat irrelevant. It was a pretty stupid idea with the Xbox Live service; mitigated only by the fact that most of the forumites already have a Gold Live subscription... so the xboxites didn't moan too much (the SonyLoLMob obviously pointed out it was rubbish, but had to deal with the fact that the PSN was pretty much empty of demos - worse then than it is now).

It's made that bit more annoying by Sony's repeated comments about the importance of a free online service.

Anyway - the Super Stardust Solo Pack - fantastic or what?

To be fair I never said it was a good thing, its clearly not, its just that the locking off demos is not something thats not been done before. I do agree that the implementation is clearly bonkers though and serves to do nothing to bring about a community spirit.

I think the difference with Live here is that the Live membership is really about the multiplayer aspect, not the demos etc. I think the early demo* bonus on Gold account was just done to give the illusion of extra value, for when you're going through a period that you're not playing online much and may question why you have a Gold account. The PSN thing is bizarre because the content seems to be pretty much exlusively marketing stuff.

*They're not early demos at all, the demo is released at the time it was always going to be released. The Silver accounts essentially get late demos. It's not like a publisher works their demo towards a Gold and Silver deadline.

I get what your saying and thats what I meant in a rounabout way, just not stated that clearly. Main thing is if they start to extend this to anything other than the demos, and from whats been said so far they might, its just going to fracture what already exists. The marketing side of it is just pure cash grabbing and nothing more.

[Uzi]

Because it's actually meant to be a good free game rather than Undertow or whatever the hell that rubbish game that MS gave away after the Christmas Live downtime fiasco was called.

It's not really free though, its 20 quid (the game is 4.99 btw) or so for the year and some demos which used to be free! I got Texas Hold em for free which is great, I still play with people on that for hours, Carcossone or whatever which is really good and yeah Undertow was the shite one. That's 2 good games, I also got a few others via free codes and promotions (SFII, Uno etc).

[Blunt]

It has to have some of the best stuff to get people paying. As soon as they say Little Big Planet / Resistance 2 demo exclusive only here, a lot of us and others will end up paying. I know I would

Well, I imagine they could throw a window of exclusivity, yes, but I also figure that this would be limited to first party stuff only, don't really see how third parties would get some money out of putting their demos in there when the thing is so cheap.

I'll wait and see how this pans out., I'm intrigued by the mention of easter eggs and mini-games. I just hope they won't start charging just to play online.

[Mr. Gerbik]

I'm really glad I kept my 360! I can download all multiplatform demos on Live, so that's at least one problem solved. But the resistance 2 demo...

They're bastards and they know it. Nobody would pay to read and watch some marketing crap, how many people actually read the Live newsletter (or whatever it's called) instead of immediately deleting it?

We're going to pay for demos

[Uzi]

Reading the press release again and as Blunt said they're putting more emphasis on the exclusive "shows". I don't know if they'll snag that many demos really, again as Blunt said and it'll be a downloadable Sony magazine and video show for Sony's hardcore fans who would pay for it. I bet theres a big enough fanboy audience that would pay just to get exclusive tib bits straight to their PS3.

When you could just launch the Web browser and probably see better stuff at gametrailers.com for nothing.

[Wickedkitten]

It's not really free though, its 20 quid (the game is 4.99 btw) or so for the year and some demos which used to be free! I got Texas Hold em for free which is great, I still play with people on that for hours, Carcossone or whatever which is really good and yeah Undertow was the shite one. That's 2 good games, I also got a few others via free codes and promotions (SFII, Uno etc).

How is it 20 quid? It's $25 and it's US only which means you'd buy it with Entropay. Plus Calling All Cars is free with the first issue so you don't even have to take out a sub

[Uzi]

So you can get calling all cars for $3 and the first issue and never bother with it again? That's fine as it is but doesn't seem like a reason to continue. Guess we'll have to wait and see what the conent is.

Seems fine for people who say buy OPM and enjoy that type of stuff. Pretty much seems like paying for stuff you'd usually get for free from the sounds of it.

[Uzi]

From the other thread:

"A SCEE rep has told PS3 Fanboy that Qore "is an SCEA only initiative at this time."

I don't think it means the end of free demos if it's just meant for one region. Just seems like IGN insider or something, some extra exclusive tat shit people can pay for. Demos are safe! (Hopefully)

Even if Sony of Europe meant to bring it here, we probably wouldn't see it come to the EU store until 2010

[Hitcher]

The worst bit is that if they have an 'issue' with a Little Big Planet or Final Fantasy XIII demo, people (including myself) will be tripping over themselves to buy it...

And you can bet that the 'introductory price of $2.99' will have ended by then as well.

[milko]

How is it 20 quid? It's $25 and it's US only which means you'd buy it with Entropay. Plus Calling All Cars is free with the first issue so you don't even have to take out a sub

Pretty sure the wording implies you have to sub early if you want Calling All Cars free, it's not just in the first issue alone.

[Monkichi 3.0]

It's so strange when you think about it. "EXLUSIVE INFO!" sounds good if it's info that would not be released otherwise, but ultimately they want you to buy their products, it's why it's so crazy that people pay for this sort of stuff. Soon they'll be selling release dates at £2 a pop or something, or they'll sell a list of retailers which stock their product. If everyone just refused to pay and said "If you won't tell us about the game you want to sell the that's your choice, I guess I'll just be more likely to pass on it if I don't know about it" then they'd be giving this stuff away. Unfortunately people are now stupidly desperate for every scrap of info they can get on a game and the marketing departments must be laughing their heads off. Is there any other industry in which people actually pay to read marketing stuff?

I'd subscribe if they had proper interviews with different people in the industry or actual good, deep features. Which they won't.