Sorry for the typos. I was posting from my phone.

You could say the average console owner does play online but you would be wrong. Most xbox 360 users didn't pay to play online. Most ps3 owners didn't play. Most ps4 users don't. Not sure with xboxone due to subscription numbers vs userbase though it it's like the 360 than they don't.  Most wii games didn't even have online and were more about the local co-op.

We've gotten a bit away from the points we were making though. You said, "And for the average gamer (people not on this site), these free games are basically worthless. The average gamer would certainly prefer a free service."

I don't think they would necessarily find them worthless, I think they didn't buy them more out of ignorance than thinking there was a lack of quality in the games. Now that there are many more people getting plus after the online was put behind the paywall for the ps4, it is clear that to some online was a more important feature to some than the games were.

 Hopefully some of them will find value in the games since they now are paying for them like it or not. Will the average new plus subscriber find them worthless? I would think not with the diversity in there. Will there be some that won’t like any? Sure, it’s easy for people to find ways to dislike things. Will some find out that they can get more in value out of there service than what they pay for it. I’m sure there will be many.

Back onto the topic as a whole do I think people prefer free to get something free vs paying for it? Of course people prefer free. Do I now know what xbox 360 fans felt when they were saying they didn’t mind netflix behind the paywall? Sure though I do still think that multiplayer shouldn’t have been behind the paywall on the ps4, but I’m not going to suddenly stop paying for plus out of protest when I am so happy with what the service gives me otherwise.

Free, how indoctrinated have consumers become when there is even a discussion to be had on the topic?

I've tried PS+. As a collector I have no desire for free video game rentals, it's even worse than owning a digital copy of a game.

I'm perfectly fine with PS+

Free online every single time, after years of paying XBlive over the years (stopped 2 years ago) I saw nio significant major boost in quality of multiplayer games, always laggy and dropping even as my ISP provided me with upgraded connections over the years with it hardly being a fault of mine since I was getting better internet speeds whilst paying for internet that was getting better and paying for a console online service that wasn't, I just got fed up with it and stopped paying.

Flash forward to now and I still see no reason to pay to play online, unless it's an MMo but even then we're seeing options like GW2 pay and play forever model and Blizz now wanting to let us pay with gold.

After building a PC back in 2013 I've found it much better since I'm not constantly throwing money into a firepit that claims improvements but nothing happens from a company, all while getting cheap game deals on Steam, GoG, GMG etc, all without having to pay extra money to get price cuts, there's even some free games to be found across multiple sites and a friend of mine likes to gift me games on Steam now and then out of kindness.

Wii U and PC will probably be my main platforms I'll use for the foreseeable future (especially PC) since they don't really charge for online gameplay, if Nintendo decides to be exactly the same as XB and PS I'll probably drop them and just stick with PC and only buy singleplayer exclusives and only buy the multiplayers for PC (Pretty much what I do with multiplatform multiplayer games anyway), I just see no reason to pay to play online when I;m already paying my ISP and to build my machine, electricity etc.

As I don`t have the time to be play `free` games given through a paid service, I prefer free online. If Ninten adopted a paid service, well, guess I`ll stop playing online. : P

I think a subscription service is a good idea, but people shouldn't have to pay to play online with other people.