Sony charging devs for user downloads

[GiantDave7]

Looks like Sony has started to charge publishers/developers for the hosting of content on the order of US16c per GB of file transfers (thats user transfered ie: if you put a 1GB demo on the PSN, Sony would charge you US16c for every person who downloads your demo).
Could this be the reason why cross platform demos/content have been delayed or not released on PSN lately compared with Live?

Someone pays: Sony charges publishers for PS3 bandwidth - Ars Technica

Your thoughts....

[George]

It looks like we won't be getting that many demos on the PS3. But i think it's a small price to keep the PSN free.

[Drac]

That's fairly cheap all things considered. I doubt you'd find too many publishers that would even blink at something like that. The main reason publishers don't put out demos is because the're concerned that they won't show the full potential of the game. A lot of rather complex games don't have demos. A lot of crap games don't have demos either, not at launch anyway.

[Pure Mongrel]

Originally Posted by George

It looks like we won't be getting that many demos on the PS3. But i think it's a small price to keep the PSN free.

Is $70Aus that big a price to pay per year for a faster more stable online experience?

With SONY losing a billion dollars last year, I can't see them continuing the free service for ever.


As to charging publishers, this seems a little one sided to me. I bet you dollars to doughnuts that SONY won't charge big publishing houses the fee for fear of losing premium titles for the console. (Imagine if EA said they would no longer develop games for the PS3 due to the cost of demos and online services, SONY would back flip so fast ... any console manufacturer would). This means that the smaller developers will still pay and have another obstacle in their way and titles that are not quite as formulaic as the games that get regurgitated every year may be lost. (Only a theory of course but an educated one.)

Maybe they should bite the bullet (deal with the backlash) now and at the very least discuss the pro's and con's of a free vs paid service with their users.

I may be in the minority, but I would happily pay a subscription fee just to get the updates faster, or access to demos from smaller publishers, let alone better online play.