News- PSN to go premium?

Details have fluttered site to site today as the oh-so-long rumoured but often avoided topic of a subscription based model for the Playstation Network (PSN), have been detailed by an “unnamed” source at VG247. To cut the long story short, Sony are suspected to officially announce specifically what the service will afford us gamers at E3 this June, although the source at VG247 has indicated that the monetizing of PSN will not hinder any online functionality that is currently available for free and will not discount any further improvements that are expected to the service, such as cross-game voice chat.

What is expected to be included within the subscription model (of “less than £50 a year”) is a choice and download of one of the pre-picked PSN titles available for that month (“two to four”), along with the ability to stream music straight from Sony's music library to play in or out of games.

We'll have to wait until E3 to get a broader sense of what the package really provides, although I like the idea of streaming music seamlessly whether in-game or on the XMB. The Xbox 'LastFM' app, in contrast (and to its detriment, in my opinion) could only be run by itself, so it's nice to see the integration in place that could raise its quality. Whether it's worth the expected value of £50 per annum is another matter entirely and could come down to the quality of PSN titles that are made available month to month. I'd love to see a mix of indie titles and bigger downloadable titles offered every other month which would give indie developers as much exposure as some of the big boys and could be a 'win-win' situation for all involved. Nevertheless, it has been coming for quite some time and I wish Sony the best in competing with XBL.