Playstation 4 To Offer ‘Free Multiplayer Weekend’ To Show Off PS Plus Features
While the Playstation 4 managed to surpass expectations when it came to sales in 2014, Sony is apparently not content. This coming weekend, the company is apparently offering an event known as a “Free Multiplayer Weekend” on the Playstation 4. This particular event will be available to everyone who owns a Playstation 4, even if they aren’t currently subscribers to the online service known as PS Plus.
Usually a gamer must have a subscription to the service in order to use any number of different online features, including the ability to get into online multiplayer games. The weekend event, running from January 16-18, according to SegmentNext, will allow anyone who owns a Playstation 4 to play any game they own on that console online, and with or against friends.
This Free Multiplayer Weekend appears to be another way Sony is attempting to keep the Playstation 4 popular among a gaming community that soured on the PS4 just a bit after the online services were knocked offline over the Christmas break. Both the online services for the Playstation 4 and Xbox Live were taken down by hackers during Christmas, but Xbox Live has been reported to have come back much quicker than Sony was able to do. This has led some to question the preparedness of Sony when it comes to keeping consoles like the Playstation 4 secure.
In the immediate wake of the hacking, Sony also offered current PS Plus customers an extended kind of subscription, meaning they wouldn’t have to pony back up if they were going month-to-month for an extra week. Of course, the drawback of this particular Free Multiplayer Weekend is that those who already have PS Plus subscriptions are really getting nothing. That appears to just be the way the cookie crumbles if you were someone who had already recognized the value of this particular service.
The announcement of the Playstation 4 Free Multiplayer Weekend comes just one day before Sony is set to roll out yet another new online feature. The subscription model for the company’s streaming video game service, Playstation Now, is set to go live on January 13. This will mean that instead of having to pay for the rental of one game at a time, gamers can enroll in a monthly service and play video games that were originally on the PS3 to their heart’s content. Sony sure seems to be making owning a Playstation 4 more attractive all the time, and that is the ultimate goal.
