PlayStation Network Bandwidth Fee Slammed by Media

A recent fee introduced into the PlayStation Network for publishers of PS3 games has been seen by several media sources as a blow to publishers. The $0.16 per gb has been introduced to cover bandwidth costs of the network. Many media sources are spouting that this will ruin the network for free and paid publishers. I reality this fee is likely less then it would cost the publisher to host the content themselves and/or produce optical media such as a DVD or CD. The fee will be charged to free content publishers for only the first 60 days after release, while paid publishers will pay It on an ongoing basis.

What does this mean for you the end user? Almost nothing. The PS3 games will still be there, the free content won’t be going away anytime soon. The only difference one might see in their downloads is the price on some games will go up a fifty cents or something similar. The PlayStation network is still free when compared to the Xbox Live (which costs $49.99 US per year for the gold membership) is still a sweet deal.