Microsoft getting ready for legal action..

There's precedent here with the PS2 or PSP. The business model there is open and third parties could charge if they want. Outside of Japan that just hasn't really happened to any great extent.

 

Welll it has happened though, so we're basically trusting EA that they won't try and make some extra money of this?? I don't know about that...

Anyways, I'm certainly not hoping for there to be charges, I just don't think you can compare XBLive to 'whatever' Sony is offering, we don't even know how that is going to turn out, so the $50 charge in the comparison chart is weak.

 

Oddly, I don't recall EA being one of the companies charging for anything in JP (their games don't sell so well there though) -- it's mostly a couple of the big JP houses (that dirge of cerberus game was recent one, iirc) and a lot of the smaller ones (with golf games and card games and stuff like that -- things that likely never get released out of JP anyways). EA has had plenty of chance to charge on PS2 and PSP, as Titanio stated.

I don't think there is anything to fear, as far as online play fees go -- microtransaction abuse is another story though. =/

A little cynicism isn't necessarily bad, but in this case there is a good chance we'll not see any charges outside of MMOs

 

They did get as far as charging for privacy on their PSP titles though, in the US anyhow. On the whole though, as long as the competition doesn't charge it may be hard for EA to. Would you buy FIFA over PES (ignoring the ordinary reasons to choose between them!) is FIFA costs you $5 a month ot play online and PES is free?

 

The comparisons between PS3 and X360 in the piece carried by Major Nelson's site and others at least have an oversimplified context in which it was accurate. The comparison in Sony's fact sheet was stated in absolute terms leaving no context in which it was accurate with the way it was worded.

 

You MUST be a lawyer. That kind of glossed-over nonsense is just too good to be wasted on here.

 

They gave you the option to keep your privacy for a dollar, something they didn't do on any other platform -- not sure why they gave that option on the PSP versions of games. I wouldn't really call that charging to play, as if you didn't pay it was like every other version (where your info got sold to other companies and such).

 

Funny that...

Souldn't have Sony prepared to sue Microsoft after Major Nelson's comparison pro-E3 2005?