At one point in time, online gaming was free. Then Sega came along and charged like $20 for Seganet 😜. Anyway, the time came when Xbox Live charged a fee and Nintendo and Sony's online was free. Microsoft fans argued how much value they were getting for their service. I admit that I argued, too. I tried to justify why it was cool for Xbox 360 online to be $50 while the PSN was free.

Over the years, my position has changed. I don't really care about the extras that come along with PS+ or XBL Gold. I just want to play online when I want to. So here's my question:

If Sony/Microsoft offered an annual subscription that had online play ONLY. No video chat. No voice chat. No discounts. No "free" games. No invites. Just the ability to join a game and play it. $20. Would you be interested?

You get what you pay for, so with it being $20, it would have minimalistic features, so I'd say no. I'd rather just pay the extra to have the bells and whistles

You know Nintendo will provide those soon, right ?

I definitely choose ＄20 plan without free games and deals.

If it didn't include cloud-saves then no

In a heart beat. I only want the online section of the plan. I do not take advantage of any other feature.

nah, i love games with gold, plus i keep them if i dont sub anymore. unlike the competitor.

Yes. Because they have games I'd want to play online.

Everything isn't about Nintendo!

I actually made a post about different tears of XBL years ago. Nintendo's online just reminded me of it. I think what I described was the "free" tier in my imaginary option, though.

I think they do. And M$ offers stuff like unlimited cloud saves for free as well. It makes their $60 services seem less and less worth it because you already get "the good stuff" for free. At the end ift the day, the online is what most of us subscribed for. The rest is just gravy.