PSN to become a two-tiered subscription service in 2010

Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Kaz Hirai comfirmed at a presentation last Thursday that Sony is working on a subscription model for their PSN service, much like Xbox Live Gold. “We will be building upon our current free [PSN] service offering with premium content and services,” said Mr. Hirai. “SCE will further increase sales by offering users new entertainment through the combination of hardware, software, peripheral, and PlayStation Network.”

Currently the Playstation Network has a revenue in the range of $563 million per year, so one can only guess as to how much Sony will be bringing in once they introduce the “premium content”. Since the presentation Sony has revealed that it plans to create a service coined as SOS (Sony Online Service) that will run on a single user IS across multiple devices I.E. MP3 Players, Laptops, HDTV’s and Consoles, using PSN as the foundation.

Luckily, none of the PSN’s current, free content will be removed or changed in any way. There will still be online play free of charge.