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Jay520 on 19 February 2013
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I can't imagine they'll charge for standard online play. Xbox Live has built the reputation to consumers of being a higher quality service in comparison to PSN, so a premium cost for Live seems more justifiable. PSN however doesn't have this benefit and the lack of a cost is a big incentive for a large portion or PS3 gamers. As a result, if PSN does suddenly stop being free next gen, I imagine a large portion of gamers may switch to Live as they may see it as more valuable.

Not to mention the high number PS3's being used as secondary consoles, especially in the states where the 360 is king. If the PS3's online has a premium, it's likely that many previously Sony-Microsoft duel-console owners may dismiss Playstation altogether and focus solely on Xbox Live (and maybe Nintendo), as they will see no reason to pay for two premiums when they both provide nearly equal experience with one having the clear reputation of higher quality.

Long story short, in order for Sony to effectively charge for online play, PSN will need to be viewed as an equal or superior competitor to Xbox Live next gen, and based on its current reputation I'm not sure if that's even possible. In fact if they do charge for online play, I am pretty confident that they will handedly lose the little marketshare they currently have in USA; as stated earlier, free online access is a big incentive for many users and since the PS3 is a secondary console for many there, it's likely that people won't pay for PSN as it would be a second fee for a service with a worse reputation.

I think it's more likely that Sony will be beefing up their PS+ service perhaps with an entirely different name. I can imagine them continuing their current offerings, while proving new stuff like backwards compatibility, streaming, etc. I'm sure Sony can think of plenty of creative ways to attract people to their premium service without making online gaming require it. But then again, this is Sony we're talking about so anything is possible. They probably already think their service does have the reputation of higher quality and may actually charage more than Xbox Live does.