This is pretty simple math.

Many people arent willing to pay for online play (like me) because its a service of unpredicted value. It may or may not work well, it may or may not be populated and it may be turned off by the publisher at their own leasure. As such, its a service that is limited and has dubious value. The costs of running it, beeing as its a temporary service, should be included in the box purchase and possibly DLC because it isnt a service but a feature of the product, beeing as its time limited and doesnt depend on you paying the fee to be continued.

With that said, people like me abhore the idea of paying for such an unpredictable and unreliable service. As such if i want to acess it free of charge, i am going to buy the console that supports that option. What does this means in terms or revenue? Simple:

(People willing to pay for a premium service to play online) x (fee) - (people not willing to pay a fee that will buy a different console) x (royalties of every game they will buy for the system).

At the end of the day, a costumer that buys more than 5-6 games a year would earn the company more than someone who pays the fee for online.

do people really have a hard time using PSN?  It's pretty simple.  I mean I used it fine the first time without even thinking about it.  Where could someone get confused?

I've always been curious about this too. It seems like the kinda of feature they would want to shout about :/ Espessially to many people who see online as the most apealing feature of gaming, it would be like having £35 off the price over the xbox.

Playstation Plus isn't PSN, its a premium service (Do not confuse the two). PSN is free just like PC is free just like the Wii U's internet services are free. The only one left out of the circle is Microsoft charging for the internet connection you already pay for. That discount service is a premium service that you are speaking of is not forced upon you. Xbox Lives makes what is free everywhere else a premium in cost and also locks you out of your subscriptions and multiplayer games that you purchase without paying the toll. Mind you those multiplayer games are very good and have convinced a lot of people that Xbox Live is worth it because of that. Sony has succeeded in getting people to pay for nothing that is free on PC, but rather to pay by choice for a premium service that gives you a healthy library of games, themes and discounts. Please learn the difference. 

Two different things. 

Steam gives games that are already free to play on PC by third party devs. This is not the same so stop acting like it. Steam gives discounts and large seasonal discounts on their own dime. This has saved PC gaming from mediocrity. PSN Plus opposed from PSN gives you a library of content on Sony's dime every week that is paid for by your subscription or you get a good discount. 

sony is no longer a premium brand. they are a good brand at a good value. the sooner sony understands this the better.

the way ps3 has taken control of the market late gen should be a strong indicator their strat is working. sony needs to improve their service but they shouldn't try to outdo MS. their $60 a year is already too high. all sony needs to do is watch MS's arrogance take hold when they raise their price again and hold out open arms for the defectors.

sadly sony will probably introduce a high priced service..

Possibly and it is a good idea as it is a different approach rather than trying to compete at the same thing which is very expensive and hard to succeed at. Also if we look at games such as Planetside 2 being F2P and very high quality, this would be in favour of what you said in that Sony want to make things good yet free, rather than superb and expensive.

Where exactly was anyone confusing the two? I am well aware that PSN and PS+ are two different things. I remind you guys of that any time you compare PS+ to XBL :) And sorry but getting people to pay for something free on PC is exactly what Sony has done. Never said it's a bad or negative thing.

Steam gives free games that aren't free to play. I should know, I have 4 or 5 of them in my library (which are just the ones I have bothered to download, there have been a lot more) which include games like Dirt 3 and Portal. While you're sitting there telling me not to confuse something I am clearly not confused on, how about you please stop confusing something you clearly are confused on. Do you even use Steam? When you say something like "to the best of my knowledge" that tells me no, you don't.

Anyways again, back to the original post I replied to before you jumped in, and this will be my last reply on this string of conversation. All I am saying is both companies have gotten people to pay for something that is free elsewhere. And they have done it by making their own service much better than the free service. I am not putting PS+ down or anything.

Out of curiosity, could you list the games Steam has given for free so far. Of course I am talking games that are relatively recent and aren't free to play by nature. It seems crazy that a service would give away 3rd party games for free on a monthly basis.

I have seen some pretty awesome offers available on steam but not any free AAA games yet. So I would be interested to know when such things happen. I did get a free copy of Dirt 3 with my graphics card though but that doesn't count.

I think that Sony is still behind online as XBOX live is much easier and nicer to work with, but Sony is getting close and it's free so yes I think until Sony closes the gap between them and XBOX to have a good online service they should keep it free as it's still not as good as XBOX live.

i remember the portal give-away.  i grabbed that too as it was a promotion they did for the mac version of steam.  i also grabbed the 4 free vita games sony just gave away tied to the vita anniversary but not tied to ps+ in any way... just free games.

i googled "free steam games"  and got this list.  that's a pretty sorry list if you want to claim it competes with ps+ especially as this guy has been tracking this since 2009.  ps+ give about 60 games a year or something (might be more now that they added vita to the subscription too) in addition to those free to play game being tracked for steam (and i'll remind you psn has those too like free realms, dust 314, uncharted multiplayer, DC universe(which is on the steam free list lol, ect ) in addition to promotional games like the free episode of sam and max, back to the future, walking dead, ect that TellTale games does for all of their games.

listen, i'm not trying to downplay steam.  it is a good service.  ps+ is a good service too.  please give credit where credit is due.