(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Sony Entertainment UK boss Fergal Gara has said [You must login or register to view this content.] that charging for online multiplayer on PS4 – the first time the company has done this – helped reduce the price of the console, although it was something Sony had to “agonise over for a very long time.”


On PS4 online multiplayer is now integrated into PlayStation Plus. That means that – for most games – if you want to play against others over the internet you’ll need to be a Plus subscriber. Plus is excellent value though, and most gamers didn’t really have too much to complain about when it was revealed during last week’s pre-E3 conference.


“First of all,” says Gara, “we wanted to introduce the console at a healthy price-point compared with PS3,” and that was apparently “front and centre in our thinking and our planning for years.”


Charging for online, or at least bundling it within Plus, will mean that the service can more realistically approach the levels that Xbox Live does. Gara says that PSN will mirror “the social features you’ve seen demonstrated on more of a world-class network” and has seen Sony “investing in a higher performance network” that will offer “better performance and reliability”.


PlayStation Plus currently costs around £40 a year.


Gara also confirmed what a couple of press releases have mentioned recently: that cross game chat – the ability to talk with other players online who aren’t playing the same game as you, or are in different teams – is definitely in as part of the PS4′s network. “It’s there,” he says.

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I hope we can change our PSN names like the XBox allows. I'd love that feature.

i agree it would be great

Yeah, I have 390+ days of PS+ left with a PSN tag that I loathe.
I pray they implement this seeing as they have already implemented everything the 360 had over PS3.

you'll just have to link up your account and use your real name (the id you want as your real name) to mask it lol

Makes sense I had a feeling this would be a factor on the price of the console.

I also hope we can change our PSN names, that would be awesome!

If this is true then I'm more than happy to pay for PlayStation Plus. It's a great service that I pay for anyway and if it helps drive the cost of the PS4 down then I'll continue to pay for it.

PS+ is a good idea fo sho <3 cant wait