That alone will not make me not buy a console. However, there is no doubt it'll have a heave influence as to where I buy my multiplats and it'll also mean I'll see any online feature as a non-exsistant feature, when making any game purchase.

I don't know - the 360's biggest exclusives, Gears of War and Halo, lose a lot of their appeal without online multiplayer (not just deathmatch, but co-op as well). I did buy the console partially for some Japanese games, but for the shooters, without XBLG they're almost useless to me now. Leaves me with a bad taste. Whatever, consoles in general have been disappointing me lately, I'll probably skip this gen till they're super cheap (though I always buy Nintendo for local multi)

Anyway, I think it influences more purchases than you might be letting on, though I know the money they make off of it is easily worth for them in the end.

No. I never played online and never will.

No, I've never paid full price for XBLG, I've always been getting $35-40 deals. I did pay around $150 for the X360 Arcade in a sale, I believe.

The XBLG Family plan sounds okay in principal, but cumbersome to set up overall. Thing is, most of us aren't using our 360 all year round, we just want to play for a couple months when a big game comes out. I guess the main issue is, the XB360 isn't our primary gaming device, which makes it much harder to justify paying for.

Lol no....................................

The idea is to try to get a pulse on how important free online play is.  Do you think if it doesn't have much of an impact, Sony wouldn't start charging for online play, knowing their base would still pay for it and not defect?  Song got rid of backwards compatibility on the PS3 for the PS2, to save some money, and also get people to rebuy content.

I pay now, so no. I'll get a WiiU eventually but it won't be the first 8th gen console I buy.

Can you point to any solid evidence, out of the mouth of Sony, that their online play will be free for the PS4 and onward?  Please do this.  Post an article or something.  All I found was this one:

http://www.thesixthaxis.com/2013/02/22/sony-boss-talks-ps4-pre-owned-the-last-guardian-and-free-online-play/

And this is the quote regarding online play:

http://www.thesixthaxis.com/2013/02/22/sony-boss-talks-ps4-pre-owned-the-last-guardian-and-free-online-play/

Will online play remain free? “We totally believe that we want to provide more functionality and more services and more content on the network. And so we are looking at how we are going to structure that. And we are not ready to talk about that.”

Find legtimate news, not rumors.  One place I saw looks like an Italian site speaking of Playstation World, which didn't show up anywhere from Sony yet.

Sony's behavior about PS4 online strategy have been a little bit suspicious so far, but I think that they keep what is free on PS3 today free on PS4 as well. However every new online feature we saw o their presentation (like video recording and sharing) will be available only for of PS+ members.

I think Call of Duty will start to sell very well on Wii U if Sony start to charge for on-line. Steam box will also become an alternative those looking for free online play.

The issue is going to be whether or not the new features are integrated and critical to online play or not.  If they are, look for a subscription to roll out.  This was an interview given with the Guardian by a Sony executive:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2013/feb/22/ps4-shuhei-yoshida-interview

On that subject, I really expected you to announce a "Spotify for games"-type service, allowing gamers to sign up and pay a monthly fee to access as many titles as they like. Is that something we can look forward to?
As more and more services and contents become available digitally, we'll have more of an option to create attractive packages. So hypothetically we can look at different models – like a cable TV company. We could have gold, silver or platinum levels of membership, something like that. We can do subscription services when we have more content – especially now that we have the Gaikai technology available. With one subscription you have access to thousands of games – that's our dream.

Sony has a dream of switcing to a subscription based model for everything it appears.

Idea is to continually get money off of players, rather than pay once, and have them rent.  If that is the dream, they will do whatever it takes to get there.  With this model the whole, "Do I have to pay to play online?" is moot, because you are paying for everything monthly.  It goes the route than Netflix did.  This seriously looks like the future, as it is.

What one has to know is how OnLive, etc... wanted to be run.  OnLive did originally charge a monthly subscription fee for things, and do now also for the deluxe level.  What that means bigger picture is not known though, but doesn't end up slam dunk saying online play will be free.