Sony: Stepping their game up?

Hello Sony... Why what's this email I've received from you?  PlayStation Plus?  Hmm...

Sony is unveiling their new, subscription based service for online gaming.  I believe that in the past I have blogged about my vast dislike for PS3's online capabilities.  It's like they say, "Here - You want to game with friends online?  Maybe try and gain some noteriety by winning 'trophies' on your games?  Well guess what?  I'm giving it to you - but it's going to be a total pain in the butt.  Oh, and I hope you don't ever want to play multi-player on the same console either.  Basically don't interact with any other humans.  Ever."

So you can see that I might have a few doubts about if Sony's offering, at $50 for a year (with 3 months free if you purchase 1 year) would be worth my hard earned cash.  They claim that the paid service offers bonuses to subscribers, including full game demos, store discounts, exclusive downloads, and free games, among other things.  My guess is that should read more like store "discounts" and "free" games.  I sincerely doubt they are going to give up that much to the paid gamer.  They never do.  And haven't the demos been free up to this point anyways?  Kinda crappy of them to now make them cost..

Since my PS3 still lives in storage, and even when I get it out I am just not into it enough to pay for this service.  Except maybe if I buy Red Dead Redemption (want!) and have to pay to play online with my friends.  And if that is the case, well, then PS3 is getting a very strongly worded letter from this lady.  Hopefully they don't take away all of our free rights now that they have a pay-to-play service..  Ok - so that went all over the place.  Basically what I wanted to say was this: I am probably not going to purchase this anytime in the near future, so if you do please comment and let me know how it is.