Playstation Plus

[Bomberman]

Sony are adding a paid subscription service to their playstation network.

Apparently this will not impact on the PSN Free (which we all have now)

More information can be found here :

http://blog.us.playstation.com/tag/playstation-plus/

I myself will not be subscribing but it would be interesting if anyone else would!

[hedges]

This was released with the latest PS Firmware update 3.40.

The key points of Playstation Plus for those who don't fancy trawling through the playstation blog are as follows:

The cost is £39.99 for 12 months with 3 months added for free if you subscribe within the next 2 months, or if you are not so sure about the commitment you can pay £11.99 for 90 days.

It gives you free access to certain games on the playstation network on a monthly basis, usually this will be one psn title, 2 ps minis titles and a PSOne classic game as well as access to time-limited full game trials. Early 12 month adopters will gain a full standard version of Little Big Planet to download and keep.

Signing up will also give you early access to demos and beta trials of forthcoming games, including early access to the multiplayer beta of the next Assassins Creed game, Brotherhood.

The service will also keep all of your games and firmware up-to-date automatically, instead of having to click through prompts like you have to at the moment.

Finally, you will also be given discounts on games on the Playstation store (again this is at Sony's discretion).

Although some of these are quite positive moves there are a few issues that I have with the service the first being that you are completely at Sony's mercy when it comes to what you can download for free. So you may well get some good titles initially like Wipeout HD, but there are quite a few games on the PSN that aren't as good that could be forced onto you diminishing the value of the package.

My next issue is with the automatic download, there have been some previous firmware updates for the playstation that have resulted in some problems with people's consoles and if this is done automatically you cannot wait until the firmware is re-patched.

Finally, although it appears that you get games for free, I consider them to be more of a rental than anything else. If you stop your subscription the games you have downloaded are locked until you re-subscribe.

[Bomberman]

nice one hedges, save's me reading up!

[hedges]

oh and a little information about the new update, straight from the playstation blog, link here:

PlayStation®Network Area of Photo Gallery

[PlayStation®Network Area] has been added under [Photo Gallery]. You can now use Photo Gallery to browse photos from Facebook® or Picasa™ Web Albums. You can also share photos from Photo Gallery with your Friends on PlayStation Network.

Video Editor & Uploader

Using the video editing and uploading feature, you can now edit video content that is saved on your PS3 system's hard disk and upload it to Facebook or YouTube™.

Other new or revised features in version 3.40

Settings

[Deep Color Output (HDMI)] has been added as an option under [Display Settings].
[Automatic Download] has been added as a feature under [System Settings]. This feature is exclusively for use by PlayStation Plus members.
The default setting for [System Auto-Off] under [Power Save Settings] has been changed to [After 2 Hours].

Photo

You can now print a photo in [Photo Gallery].
You can now delete a photo in [Photo Gallery].

Friends

You can now see the trophy level of a Friend by selecting the Friend’s avatar.

Other

You can now use a five-star rating system to evaluate products that you purchase from PlayStation Store.
The internal clock functionality that accounts for leap years has been improved.

I'm very intrigued by the video editor and will have to give it a go, once I replace my bricked PS3 with preferably a newer, slimmer version.

[Nosnibor]

Just a quicky on this thread. I'm still not sold on PS+ and I found this article on IGN very interesting.

http://uk.ps3.ign.com/articles/110/1102752p1.html

It continually updates with their progress. Not looking good so far is it!

[Techmonkey]

It certainly doesnt seem worth it with those stats, but is early days yet I suppose.