While everyone was busy cheering on Sony for allowing PlayStation 4 owners to sell and trade retail game discs just like they always have, many missed an important change to Sony's pricing structure for online services. Apparently, online multiplayer gaming on the PS4 will require a $50 per year subscription to PlayStation Plus, matching a similar requirement for Xbox Live Gold to get online multiplayer on Microsoft's systems.

The "announcement" was buried at the bottom of a list of "features" of PlayStation Plus, which was listed on a single slide during Sony's press conference (we snapped the above picture of it but didn't absorb the real impact in all the craziness at the time). The list included "immersive multiplayer online on PS4" as one of the benefits of a Plus subscription, alongside discounted games, cloud saves, an instant game collection, and more.

Sony seemed to confirm this information in a tweet from the official PlayStation account during the conference, which pointedly noted that "PS4 gamers who aren’t Plus members can still enjoy single-player games for free," implying that the company would be charging for online multiplayer.

The presence of free multiplayer servers was one of the big differentiators that set the PS3's online services apart from those of Microsoft's Xbox Live. Now it seems Sony has given up that advantage in favor of bringing in more cash to support the bevy of persistent online features in many of the PS4's games. You won't need a Plus subscription to use PS4 media features like Netflix, though, while Microsoft still requires a Live subscription to use that service on the Xbox 360.

Elsewhere on Twitter, Sony provided some good news to potential PlayStation 4 owners who might want to buy games from across the ocean. In response to a direct question, Sony Third-Party Relations Manager Brad Douglas tweeted that "SCEI PR tells me 'no region locking' [for the PS4]."

Meanwhile, an official fact sheet distributed alongside today's press conference confirms that extra Dualshock 4 controllers for the PlayStation 4 will run $59, €59, or £54, depending on region. The new depth-sensing PlayStation Eye camera will run a similar $59, €49 or £44. Sony also noted that the PlayStation 4 will sport a standard 500 GB hard drive—the same size as that inside the Xbox One—in addition to confirming many previously revealed stats for the system.