Sony: PS3 to PS4 upgrade pricing determined by publisher

During Sony's Gamescom press conference, president Andrew House revealed a program that allows consumers to upgrade from select PS3 titles to their PS4 counterpart for a significantly discounted price. For a limited time games like Call of Duty: Ghosts, Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag, Watch Dogs, and Battlefield 4 will be discounted through Sony's digital store; however, Sony confirmed that the publishers will be the ones to determine the price to upgrade.

"The publisher gets to define that, actually. What will happen is, the PS4 digital file will be made available on the PlayStation Store – as it would be anyway – at launch, and the PS3 discs will be sold through retail," UK managing director Fergal Gara told Digital Spy.

"What the consumer can then do, for a premium to be defined by the publisher, is access the PS4 digital game and then provided they still have the PS3 disc, they will be able to play the PS4 version when they decide to buy the next gen," he explained.

Gara went on to say that the time window and price window have "yet to be defined," but hopefully we find out soon. "Time window is probably more business policy for PlayStation, perhaps, but hte premium will be defined by the publisher," he reiterated.

Confirmed publishers partaking in the upgrade program include Ubisoft, Activision, EA, and Warner Bros. The program should help ease consumer hesitation knowing that they'll easily be able to upgrade their games for a discount once the next-gen systems arrive in November. Sony revealed at Gamescom that the PS4 will release on November 15 in the U.S. (November 29 in Europe); Microsoft is maintaining a "November" launch window.

[Digital Spy]