Bought my ps2 at launched and love it. In 2003 my girlfriend bought me an Xbox... loved it even more. Played Halo and Halo 2 for days. Because of Xbox, I missed a lot of ps2 classics, ratchet and clank, sly, god of war, SOTC, but didn't care. 2005 came and I got myself the 360 with call of duty 2 then Oblivion. In 2008 I bought a ps3 and didn't use it as much because my 360 was great and had maybe five times as many games. Well RROD came and Microsoft fixed it...it happened again... and I paid to get it fixed this time because Microsoft wouldn't do it again. In 2009 RROD came again and this time I was so heartbroken I didn't want to fix it. Instead I played my Ps3.
I started downloading games on PSN, bought the sly collection, tried the new ratchet and clank games, played all god of war games and finally tried the Uncharted series. Halfway through all of this I realized that keeping my Xbox live account was stupid since I wasn’t using it. I decided to cancel my recurring gold subscription, with plans of getting again when I get another 360. Ps+ came along and I didn't like it at first, but they offered a beta for DCOU in late 2010 and I couldn’t help it, I had to get it because I couldn't wait to play that game. I have stopped playing DCOU for a while now, but ps+ has been in my ps3 ever since. My plans of getting another gold subscription...gone.
Most of the argument for gold are either Xbox live gold is awesome because Microsoft is making a shit load of money so obviously it's awesome, party chat, and of course online stability. To all of that I say... whatever. $60 a year is very little money compared to the amount of money I spend on video games overall, so the amount of money is not the problem, rather what I am getting in return. Look at the free-to-play industry as an example. MMOs that take away essential parts of the game to charge money for it are falling down on popularity very hard versus those that make the experience free and only charge for things that add to the experience. So this is why I don’t subscribe to gold anymore, even thought I own a 360 now. The marginal return for the cost of gold is not worth it for me. There simple. If gold stays the same for the next gen, then I won't even consider next Xbox.
Call me a fanboy or whatever you want, but I play games for fun. The moment the tables turn and Xbox gives me more fun for my money than Playstation, is the moment I will turn on my Xbox and re-subscribe. This day has not come yet.
