"Gold is an exploitive business practice that should disappear into the ether when the next generation arrives."

Wait, what about the 'Free To Play' games? Not very free if you pay to play online.

I pay for PS plus anyway as it's a great service.

Why would sony fan bitch about something their not paying for, mock is the better word but hey if i have to pay $5 a month to keep my freedom its a small fee

Seems like a bad decision to me, PS plus was already an amazing deal, do they really think they will get many more subscribers by holding multiplayer to ransom. Not happy about it, but no DRM, low price and had no plans of leaving plus anyway, so ill take it.

Ok this sucks big time. >_>
I am not really a online player guy when it comes to console but when I am trying to achieve a platinum trophy this will suck. I just hope the free games will be worth it.

but on the bright side the PSN plus will carry over because I am planning on subscribing to plus for a year for my new PS3.

I pay for PSN Plus, but the problem is that with the PS3 Sony offers its users a free option and a premium option for the core users.

The problem with that in the case of Xbox Live, Microsoft dosen't give you that option, however I thought the point of PS3 was to provide users with an option, this is dissapointing.

I can't really say that I agree with this,but I guess the have to offset the $399 price point some how?

I find it strange that a subject that has spawned hundreds of threads is suddenly becoming a non issue on these forums for a large number of posters, the silence is deafening.  These are posters that posted walls of text about how much XBL was rip off, yet you're now lucky to get more than sentence of them saying "meh, but there's no DRM". 

I called this when PSN + was first announced, it was obvious it was a ploy to start introducing Playstation fans to the concept of paying to play, it was just impossible for Sony to do it last gen (without them losing all credibility) after they made so much of a big thing about free online.  I agree with people that I'd rather pay a subscription service like this than lots more money up front for the console for a service I may or may not use. 

It's really very simple.

You are comparing a strategy followed by Microsoft when Sony did not follow that strategy, to a strategy followed by Sony when Microsoft does follow that strategy.

Obviously it's going to be less of a turnoff if both companies are doing it.