The party/communication features wont be exclusive for too long. PSP Vita already has it so you know what will get it next.

I don't see how anyone can argue against this.

It already is.

Playstation Plus offers you an instant game collection on top of the already free online. That is all you need to enjoy your PS3. Huge savings. and these aren't bad games either..we're getting games like Borderlands, Bioshock 2, Uncharted Golden Abyss, LittleBigPlanet 2...etc.

PS+ should be a standard for online services on consoles.

I honestly don't understand why so many Sony fans are so in love with PS +. You pay for Sony to pick games for you. What if you don't want those games? If you do you like the games you have to keep paying or you'll lose it. The sales are fine, but again you're paying Sony to choose what to discount for you. It's more like a rental system, but you only get to rent what Sony picks out from it's basket of stuff they that has already paid for itself or isn't selling.

PS Plus is brilliant, Many many high quality games at no extra cost as well as some smaller games like LIMBO, although I'm a sucker for physical copies, PS plus makes it so I always have something to play in between game purchases, Online backup allowed me to keep all my locked saves when replacing HDD too.

Thanks to PS Plus, I now have 821 games. I don't know how it happened so fast. I only bought my PS3 in November 2010.

I paid $50 in August and have downloaded over $200 worth of games that I've played all the way through and sometimes platinumed.  I don't like every game they have but I mean even if you only like a tenth of the stuff they put up free (not counting discounts) you still get your money's worth.  Not to mention the cloud saves and beta access.

I feel you man. As I said before and although it is harsh, but its just plain simple: MS feeds on the consumer's stupidity of following fads and getting brainwashed into not being able to make up their own minds. Its a problem of people nowadays that wherever the masses go, they think they need to go there to be "hip".

Personally at the time when I bought the 360 over 3 years ago I genuinely thought that it was offering something unique in the multiplayer front. But I am a gamer at heart and not someone who just follows trends, so I could clearly see that the PS3 is just offering MUCH more than MS has been offering for the past few years. You really can't argue against the fact that MS have been riding on Halo and Gears to sell people shooters, which is the current "hip" thing, while Sony has a library that is far more diverse in genres. Even when you don't consider the games and just the pure service, MS is pretty much charging you $50 for cross game chat and kinect/bing dashboard support. Perhaps you should ask your friends, even if they don't care about the games, do they really feel that paying $50 a year for cross game chat and waving your hands at the dashboard really worth it? Because everyhing else MS has Sony and other platforms offer for free. But unfortunately I don't think any of this will help since they have been brainwashed into thinking MS is great my the media and their friends.

If you are truly a gamer, you should be able to rise above all this fanboy media brainwashing crap and see who is truly offering the best services at the most value price. The truth is evidently clear from that which is deceitful. That said if someone really enjoys MS console for Halo and Gears and they truly don't like the games other platform holders have to offer (unlikely but possible), I have no problems with those people. Them paying MS is fine because they made up their own minds and enjoy what they enjoy.

If Sony marketing could actually get across the value of things like PS+ (never seen an ad for it) and how awesome their exclusives are (I've never seen ads for anything but their absolute BIGGEST exclusives and yet many of their smaller still get over a million sales but deserve a couple million at least).  Coming out a year later really hurt this gen because people's friends bought 360 and they only wanted to play COD so they bought the system their friend did and since PS3 was $200 more when it came out they went with the significantly cheaper option their friends all had.  Honestly it's amazing PS3 has reached the sales heights it has given what they did to the launch of this system and how they completely gimped it.  Throw in the architecture and the lack of system sellers until MGS4 and it's looking mighty sketchy for MS if they aren't spotted all this stuff this Fall.

I'm glad you like it, but the list of gameseither don't interest me or I've allready played it. The rare games on the list I am interested in and don't have would cost me less to just buy than to pay for PS+ and I wouldn't have to keep paying to keep playing. I'm just not going to pay a company to pick out what games I play.