Yeah, most likely. It keeps money pumping into the industry, which is good, especially with the retail price of games not changing. Both Microsoft and Sony seem to roll a lot of their revenue back into advertising, which obviously has a positive effect for ALL games on a system. You convince people to buy a system for CoD or Madden then there is a good chance they'll buy other stuff, too. That's why it's called an ecosystem.

Those talking about "greed", well, yeah? A business that isn't greedy usually dies an early death. Greed allows for growth--the only thing to really complain about from a philosophical perspective is when a company puts that profit in the bank rather than using it for growth and improvement. The consumers talking about businesses being greedy are often greedy themselves. I remember when I used to have a suggestion box for my business; most of the suggestions would have been wonderful for my customers--at least until I had to declare bankruptcy and they had to find a new place to shop.

If every product or service became subscription based then that would be a very bad thing; however, as they say, all (most) things are good in moderation.

Subscriptions help retain consumers within an ecosystem and they also represent a form of expected/garunteed revenue. It's really up to the producer how this revenue is spent, but an example of a positive way subscriptions are utilized can be seen with subsidizing a higher end piece of hardware to let it to be more affordable by allowing monthly payments over a period of time. (How do you think so many people can afford an $800 iPhone the day it launches?) This also gives a producer breathing room to fund more experimental/risky ventures as they are less reliant on month to month sales of services/products and can have time to think farther ahead with the direction the company should move toward.

These are my assumptions at least. Again, moderation is key. It would really suck to live in a world where we didn't have bundled packages or everything was separated by it's own subscription.

If you can't afford $60 a year ($5 a month) on an online subscription (where WoW players pay $75 every 6 months to play a single game) that grants you access to online play, cloud features (share play, cloud saving), 4-6 free games a month and steep discounts on a weekly basis for popular games then you might be in the wrong market. We are a tech driven niche after all right? What's the point in pursuing the medium if no advancements are made? A lot of the innovation comes from the hardware side of things, but just as much has to do with software, and networking/infrastructure. Without the Ps+ requirement, which is driving profit for the division, we would very likely see a largely scaled back effort with AAA marketing rights, investment in first party IP/output and R&D spent on riskier ventures. Look at PSVR for example. First to console market, but it also has to forge a new path not yet traveled by anyone else and they surely weren't profitable out the gate. What allows such a product to exist? PS+ helps offset the cost of things like that. Hard to imagine how Sony would have looked this gen without the extra income generated by that service. I'll gladly contribute my $5 a month since it will be returned in spades with free games and the savings I get on PSN, besides the most obvious point of being allowed to play online.

What innovations have been made? I can play online on my PC for free and it's a far better experience than whatever Sony and MS can offer. 

If Sony can't afford to innovate without charging for online than they shouldn't be in the business to begin with.

Sony's subscription shouldn't include online play. Let people pay for the "free" games and discounts. I imagine the amount of subscribers would greatly decline though (further driving home the point that most consumers only pay for this subscription for the online play, and not the "free" games or discounts). 

It's also a more expensive experience (for It to be better) and not nearly as easy to use. You're also prone to viruses which isn't a concept on console.

SharePlay is an innovation for instance. Remote Play is an innovation. PSNow is an innovation. They might not be widely used, but that's moreso a problem with Sony than it is with the actual execution of each concept. Those are all fairly recent too. And actually, before this gen and even at the starting of this gen, Sony has always been a loss leading console maker that made profit back through software. This is great for the consumer, but think about this ~ the cost of a AAA game has been $60 for over a decade now. That has remained stagnant. What hasn't remained stagnant is development costs for software. Gamers want bigger, more interactive worlds, with smaller and smaller details with an arms race toward photo realistic graphics. This is being partially offset by season passes and DLC but that's often times not enough as we have seen numerous AA, AAA and Indie teams collapse after lackluster sales. This ALSO needs to be offset. PS+ probably helps with that too, as we've seen far more exclusives come to Sonys system than the competitors the past few years.

Wait a minute, if we're gon use this reasoning, then all of those innvations talk abt NES getting online functionality is also worthless. On PC, you could also play NES games with online functionality (with emulator). Heck.. with PC, not limited to NES, I could also play GBC, GBA, and NDS games with online functionality.

Everything is free if you steal it. What's your point? 

And what emulator can add online play to games that didn't have it? Never heard of that... 

Kailera, nesbox, and almost every gba-nds emulator have online functionality. The more you know

Also,

https://github.com/polaris-/dwc_network_server_emulator/wiki/Compatibility

There were many popular servers for NDS games, but nintendo took it down. There are still few servers left but you have to look for it on the internet~ the more you know

In terms of the games they give away with the subscription, I do wonder/worry that it it de-values games. I've gotten to the point where I don't buy games because I think there is a chance they will be one of the 'free' games. That can't be good for the devs.