@ra1n yes and no.

• Sony needed to keep market share and #Xbox really delivered #ConsoleMultiplayer that was frictionless (beyond the #paywall).

Also #Sony scrapped the #FreeMultiplayer later in the #PS3 lifecycle by paywalling #PSN too.

• Obviously #Microsift knew that it's #Multiplayer worked good and that they could charge for it.

Plus it did make it longterm sustainable because it does incur costs that would've to be paid and Sony did subsidize their service with ~ $5 more in #licensing fees per full-price AAA retail disc game.

• Not to mention the PS3 was pushed to win & end the #FormatWar for #bluray which Microsoft just partially sabotaged with the #HDDVD addon so #Streaming (via #Netflix) would win.