Peter Skerritt, content editor, weighs in on Sony's announcement of Qore. You can read the full article after the jump.

Sony, in partnership with Future Publishing, unleashed the premiere issue of its new online magazine this past week. Called Qore, the magazine sells for $3 per monthly issue-- or $25 annually-- and is a rather interesting and feature-laden alternative to print media as it allows its readers to skip around and view only the features that they want to see, in any order. Unlike printed magazines, where you have to find a specific page, there are videos, art galleries, and more which are all arguably more stimulating than simply looking at static screenshots and reading lots of text. 

While Qore certainly earns a fair amount of praise for its relatively novel approach, the promises that Qore makes for subscribers and purchasers is bound to anger many PlayStation Network (PSN) members. Right out of the gate, Sony is offering beta sign-ups for SOCOM: Confrontation. In the past, beta tests for Sony games used to go to members of the PlayStation Underground, which didn’t cost any money to be a part of. Qore is promising its readers initial access to certain demos and beta tests ahead of everyone else. This means that, quite possibly, access to popular demos for PSN members who don’t buy into the Qore program will be restricted for a limited time. 

This is a surprising departure from what has been a major selling point for PSN. Before Qore, no money needed to be paid to download the latest demos. Granted, PSN is still largely a free service, but having to pay even $3 for access to a demo for a game that you really want to play—potentially Soul Calibur IV, for example—stings just a little bit. Qore also now raises the question of what happens to Sony’s PlayStation Underground operation. Does Qore replace the Underground program? It will be interesting to follow this in the months to come. 

The good news is that the first issue of Qore is rather decent. There is information on some pretty hot upcoming PS3 and PSP releases, including the aforementioned SOCOM: Confrontation, as well as Soul Calibur IV, Afro Samurai, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, and Secret Agent Clank. The interviews are pretty interesting, and the footage is pretty clean. The intro segments with Veronica Belmont are in full HD, although her delivery of the occasionally silly script can come off as forced at times. 

As for the negatives, the first issue of Qore weighs in at well over 1500MB, so expect to give it awhile to download before accessing it. With mandatory installs gradually sapping many a player’s hard drive space, it’s likely that you’ll be deleting the previous month’s issue before downloading the new one. Also, despite having to pay for Qore, there are ads galore that pop up when moving from feature to feature. Most of these ads don’t last long, but it’s certainly annoying to pay money to see ads pop up. Some ads don’t allow you to skip by them, either. It would be more understandable if Qore was free and needed ad revenue to pay for costs, but paying customers shouldn’t be subjected to ads that can’t be skipped over—or any ads, for that matter. 

Of course, the biggest potential negative has yet to be realized. Aside from the SOCOM beta invitation, the first issue of Qore did not grant any early access to formerly free demos, as of press time. Internet message boards and even Sony’s own PlayStation Blog have seen generally negative reaction to this possibility. While Qore stands to be a potentially strong source of revenue for Sony, it remains to be seen how it will affect PSN and its members as a whole. We’ll be reviewing Qore updates monthly and will fill you in on the exclusive stuff that you could be missing out on.