Steam does everything PS+ does and does it for free.

Nintendo and Sony aren't profitting off of anything that needs to be profitted off of. Microsoft is capitalizing on a closed online operating system where the users aren't majorly aware that its free elsewhere. Sony is offering a premium alternative giving choice instead of forcing the hand of the buyer, so they aren't "cheaping" their way out of anything. If anything they are giving more for your money while giving you what you should have free for free and there is little to no difference at all outside of maintenance.

Microsoft outcheaped the PS3 becoming the more affordable console to have the same multiplats as the PS3. In America thats a big thing. I also think Microsoft will outcheap them again with the cellphone business plan.

Really?....how so? I don't remember them having a service where you pay to get monthly games given to them instead of paying full price or discounts. They give free to play games regardless but not on that level, only something thats allowed the developer to be free. They give deals themselves, especially at the end of major quarters like summer and fall.

Are you familar with Steam? What feature does PS+ have that Steam does not?

just saw your edit.. you can say PS+ differs by offering the games on a different schedule than Steam but the moral of the story is they both offer free content.

I edited this post and secondly, what does the PC offering have to do with a fair console offering thats being competitive with another console? Steam only gives for free (to the best of my knowledge) what games are already free to play on PC. The discounts are what people periodically wait for. PSN Plus has its own charm. They are not the same. None of the companies offerings are the same.

The basic features of Xbox Live? Free PSN is basically 90% of XBox Live gold free. All extra subscriptions are paid for extra.

I am replying to a guy talking about how MS managed to get people to pay for something that is free on the PC. He then goes on to say he is ok with paying for a discount/free game service. I am pointing out to him that Steam exists on PC. So Sony has also succeeded in getting people to pay for something that is free on PC.

They give out more free games than what you can already play for free. "giving" games that are already free doesn't even make sense. And they have good deals pretty much all the time, people just really go ape shit over the seasonal sales because they are really ridiculous sales.

Was there ever one single game free on steam, that comes even close to the quality of Red Dead Redemption? Mass Effect 3? Arkham City? Bulletstorm? Dead or Alive 5? Just Cause 2? Can I play Steam games on the go like with my Vita? Is there anything that comes close to Metal Gear Solid Collection? Does my PC turn automatically on with steam and gets updates for all my games, downloads new stuff and uploads my saves into the cloud? 

It's just not comparable. At all. Sure, you can just call anything free content, but by that logic, virtually any service offers "free content" (like demos, some videos, you get the idea) and could be compared to PS+. PS+ offers AAA-Titles without additional charge, every month, both for PS3 and Vita. You don't find something like that anywhere else at the moment. End of story. 

If you want to argue something like subjective quality of the free games, then I would agree, PS+ consistently offers better free games. But at the same time I'd say XBL is much easier to use and much faster than PSN and in many cases PC games. The argument works both ways.

You can get a laptop or tablet with a real OS and play Steam games on the go. No, you can't play Steam games on Vita just like you can't play PS+ games on PC. And I said content because PS+ offers more than free games. So does Steam.

No. I'm pretty sure steam isn't giving you free access to games that actually have a price (at least not forever but sometimes for a weekend). Those games were free to play to begin with and there is free to play games on PSN as well that don't require PS+.

PS+ takes a number of games WITH A PRICE TAG an say give you them for free as long as you're a subscriber. In addition, there's a lot of discounts.