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First the good news—according to a post on the official PlayStation Blog , the awaited PSP comics service has gone live in select territories. According to the post, the service will kick-start in UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, with additional territories planned for next year. From the various comic book publishers, Sony has confirmed availability of issues from the following: Marvel, IDW, Titan, iVerse and 2000AD, Ape Entertainment, Red 5, Archie, Image, Insomnia, and Dabel Brothers publishing. Additionally, there will also be a selection of comic books that will be available for free—as of this moment there are about 14 comics listed in the free section.
On the flip-side, Sony seems to be once again hinting at charging users for their PSN service. In an interview with Nikkei Japan, Masayuki Chatani of SCE was asked how the company is offsetting the cost of running the online service. Chatani could not be vaguer with his response as he stated that Sony should be charging the users in some form, it’s just that they have not figured out how to do it. Seems like Sony wants to rattle our coin-purses for more money, but they appear to be frustrated at being indecisive about implementing any form of subscription method. This dispute is all the more evident now, since a statement made by Kaz Hirai last month assured users that the current services offered by PSN will continue to be free of charge. What we could infer from this discourse is that Sony may be adding another layer of ‘premium’ services that will come with some form of a subscription fee model. Guess we have little choice but to wait and watch what this might entail, while the honchos duke it out amongst themselves.