Hell yes, in some sense. It might not look like a big deal but it is. If someone with neither systems wanted to buy a new console they have to pay an extra $50 (not sure how much gold card is $60?) with Xbox including paying annually. For those who had the Xbox for years now thats a free full price retail game lost when you compare to other systems.
Xbox is doing fine now, but if they cut that off then ps will lose a small amout (which is still so many) of a user base for its system. Xboxlive is great ( i play halo so much at friends) and more people go with that if it were to be free.
Just look at 3DS and Vita. Vita's more powerful about equal game quality with each other (nintendo has advantages though). When the 3DS was $250 (before price cut) they sold about 3.2mil units (in 5 months) while vita same price had to beat that number by this holiday, almost a year (9months WW). Difference you paid more for vita because of expensive memory. If the memory was cheap or included Vita should be at 5-6mil already. I cant tell you how many people have a psp but no vita because of this.
