You're a fool if you believe that.

Infrastructure costs money.  A LOT of money.  The costs to provide a service as big as and with the service level agreement that Xbox LIVE has is impossible without revenue and you can't get that through games.  Sony knows this.  That was the whole reason for offering PS+ in the first place, to create something people would subscribe to in order to generate revenue.

I've worked in a data center.  I know how much it costs to maintain thousands of servers, keep it cooled, and keep it powered.  I know the costs for bandwidth, which are not cheap.  All of this costs considerable money and if you don't think it does you're clueless.  If you think it can be made up in the sale of a game, you're clueless.  It isn't and it can't.  You have to have some substantial revenue in order to pay for it.

PS+ is great and I am subscribed for a long time. It was a great idea to keep the costs of infrastructure down. 

Online multiplayer was free, is free (Steam), and can very well be free. You just need smart ideaas like PS+.

How is Steam doing then, game prices are way, way lower, no paid multiplayer, and it is doing just fine.

Why I mostly disliked Live is because the competition did it for free. Most of my friends feel the same. Why would I pay for Live when PSN did it for free. At first, Live was better so I didn't mind then, but later on they were the same. I'm not too happy about paying now, and I probably won't pay until I buy a game that I really want to play online. People should just open their eyes and see that this is not as bad as the 360 charging for online even until now.

LOL so now its Microsoft's fault that Sony is charging for online multiplayer? Wow i have heard it all on this website. 

walsufnir said: wick said: Well seeing as I've had an xbox live gold account for the past 4 years I won't care whatsoever. At least I'll own my games unless you quit ps+ - all the rentals are gone, right?

I don't download games. I buy them in shops.

With my internet it took me 14 hours to download the patches and maps for Battlefield 3.

Hence the reason I'm switching to Sony. No online dependency.

It's a bit of both really. People have started expecting more then simple p2p online play that Nintendo offers.
To stay competitive they need to keep up with Microsoft's infrastructure, and that costs a lot of money indeed.
Sony tried to pay for that by charging publishers bandwidth fees, and that led to less demos on psn.
Then online passes came about, nobody liked that.
ps+ was a good way to generate some revenue, but why get ps+ with a new system with no backlog. Any games put on ps+ the first year is going to cost a lot more then it has for ps3.

Steam online play is still free, yet they don't have the burden of R&D costs and subsidizing a console. Their cut on sales all goes to the infrastructure.
The WiiU is still free, I don't have experience with it other the Mii Plaza though. I don't have any multiplayer games for it yet.

It sucks, as it will lock me out of playing with friends that don't want to get ps+.
But I understand the money has to come from somewhere.

If it's a choice between 399 and paid online, or 499,- limited demos and online passes, then it's simple for me as I already enjoy the value of ps+. I do wish they would keep simple p2p online free, but I guess it's too much to ask from developers to put 2 forms of online play in each game.

I dont play online that much, but I will probably get a ps+ subscription once I get a PS4 sinc you still get a lot of sweet discounts and free games.

No? Maybe  you missed the part where I was talking about people. It was such a short read.

I can't wait till sony does DRM so everyone thinks it's ok...

It's unfortunate that the PS+ thing is being used as a bit of a distraction technique by some users.

Sony is $100 cheaper, it has more powerful hardware, doesn't have online DRM crap or issues sharing games. I don't know about you, but for me $5 a month is a small price to pay to not get screwed over in terms of game/online ownership.

Do i like paying to access online... nope. Do I already have PS+... yes. So All i will do is stock up on PS+ before the console is out, no problem. Paying for PS+ is the least of my concerns with the consoles.