Sony Charging Publishers for Free Downloads

Free game demos and downloadable content is costing game publishers quite a bit of cash every time they are downloaded from the PlayStation Network. Sony have begun charging game publishers each time a piece of free content is downloaded.

MTV Multiplayer reports that Sony implemented a pay per gigabyte system as of October 1st last year. It now costs publishers USD $0.16 per downloaded gigabyte of free content, while that may seem small it adds up. Game demos are often over 1GB; if a million gamers download a demo of that size it's costing the publisher USD $160,000. The publisher is only charged during the first 60 days that the demo or free DLC is available on PSN, although that's when most content is downloaded.

Both Microsoft and Nintendo do not charge publishers for free content. This may have shed some light on why demos are often released on the Xbox Live Market Place up to a week before PSN. If multi-console owners had already downloaded the content on 360 it would save the publisher some much needed coin in a time when everyone is struggling financially.

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ICC_06 22/03/2009

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