But I did acknowledge that it was thanks to Sony that we get free games, so what is your point? :)

You mean, move out of the console space and back to PC?

Yes

Whoops, you stole my reply. :P I pretty much agree with this. In any case, this is how I feel too. I can aford Xbox Live, but I don't feel like paying for it.

I think MS is setting themselves up to abandon the console race.

What they did here just now made me more interested in getting their games on PC, than getting an Xbone.

YOu have to remember that pc has thigns like origin and the very popular steam. If they put a pricewall, it will fail to seam. They have tried with windows gaming and it failed. Whereas with consoles, it was thanks to ms with xbox as it was teh first one to come out with xbox live paywall and proved to be successful. Look at sony, the y followed the footsteps of ms hence why psn is now under the paywall. Two different ecosystem. Thats my point, hence why gamers shoulnt complain. Conosles never had an ecosytem from the start that was like steam. If they had, we would be a different conversation. There are benefits for paying and one of the benefits is more servers, the oney they make can used to get more games and what not.  When ps3 was free, the multiplayer was horrible compared to xbox live with teh 360.

I don't think its their intention to give their key exclusives that makes their consoles special to PC. If they do, they might as well just leave because word will spread like wildfire.

Well I refuse to pay for Gold on Xbox One/360 anymore then. At this point I might as well just buy a gaming PC. Knew PS4 was the right choice for me. Should of stuck with my first choice, it's usually always right .

Poor Microsoft, this is a lose-lose situation for them. They can't charge PC users because it would just fail, no other service charges money to play online on it's platform. (origin, steam, uplay.)

But making it free for PC users is apparently making console gamer's unhappy and they can't make it free for Xbox users too because that's just too much revenue to throw into the gutter.

I think the problem is that MS are using the console subs to build and maintain XBOX Live, which they are then going to be giving to the PC users for free. If the PC online service was completely separate no-one would have an issue.

I'm waiting for MS to come out and say the reduction in subs recently was to take the online portion out, as that's the part they are giving to the PC users for free. The remaining subs are for games, console OS and interface updates. Complete BS of course, but hey, people bought in to paying $60 a year without question...

Also, Sony had no choice but to follow MS on subs, as there is no way anyone could compete with the income stream MS had on 360, and this would have been a final gen for them otherwise. There just isn't any way to compete with a giant like MS, who have a revenue stream which lets them sell at a loss whenever, and for as long as they feel like, without adopting some of their practices to stay relevant.

I'm hoping MS are transitioning back to software only, and building up the PC support before exiting the console hardware market. That's where they fit best as a company, and would benefit everyone if all these shady practices of third party exclusives, timed exclusives, marketing deals, exclusive content, simultaneous release delays etc. were stopped.