PlayStation 4 Functionality for Non-PS Plus Subscribers

[Haze]

During E3 Sony announced that players will need to subscribe to PS Plus in order to play multiplayer titles on the next-gen console.

Yet that isnâ??t entirely true, as some online multiplayer free-to-play games on the system will not require a PS Plus subscription.

Furthermore, some PS3 functionality currently restricted to PS Plus subs will become free to everyone on PS4.

Letâ??s start with the games. While it will be necessary to subscribe to PS Plus in order to play the multiplayer element of most games on PS4, the same does not apply to free-to-play titles.

Ultimately, says Sony, that decision is down to publishers.

"As far as free-to-play games are concerned, it's a publisher's decision whether they put it inside or outside of the PlayStation Plus requirements," SCE Worldwide Studios President Shuhei Yoshida told Polygon.

Blacklight: Retribution, Warframe, DC Universe Online and PlanetSide 2 will not require a PS Plus subscription, it has been confirmed.

Beyond that, SCEE UK & Ireland MD Fergal Gara has said that features like auto-update, which is currently available only on PS3 to PS Plus subs, will become available to all on PS4.

Thatâ??s in addition to the consoleâ??s â??social featuresâ?￾ - which presumably relates to, among other things, the much called for cross-game chat feature.

â??If you choose not to subscribe we are still gating relatively little in many senses, so access to online catch-up TV and online movie services sit outside of the gate, for example,â?￾ Gara told VideoGamer.

â??The social features of PS4 and PS4 games sit out of the subscription service, things like auto-updates on PS4 sit outside of PlayStation Plus, so weâ??re trying to be as balanced and as fair as we possibly can.â?￾

A PlayStation Plus subscription applies across PS3, PS4 and Vita, and costs £39.99/$49.99 for a one-year subscription and £11.99/$17.99 for a 90-day subscription.

Source: Sony Outlines PlayStation 4 Functionality for Non-PS Plus Subs - PlayStation 3 News At PS3Trophies.org

Sounds good to me. What do you guys think?

 

[BlackSolaris]

Definitely good, but like all this confusion with the E3 about the next gen, i prefer to just wait it out and see how things will really work out. You might never know what kind of stuff they will pull out of nowhere.

 

[ozadin]

Fine by me. I think Sony is making great decisions since they said that free games will not require a Playstation Plus subscription. If it were Microsoft however, I believe they would have stamped a fee on that as well. Hopefully, the free multiplayer games widens so that non-subscribers can be satisfied as well. Multiplayer is a big part of gaming, and you don't want to be ruining that for people.

 

[DrRipley]

This might be a good thing, provided publishers would actually give it out for absolutely free. I really think they are missing on some important possibilities for advancement here by leaving the decision to the publishers and developers, but I understand that there are probably a lot more various factors that I'm not aware of that may have lead to this decision. Still, I think it would be a lot less confusing if it were just one rule instead of having to navigate through all these requirements, exclusions and regulations that will be unique to each game.