Even though this negates a very important advantage, and a lot of users who purchased a Playstation 3 did it because it had free multiplayer gaming as opposed to Xbox, the truth is that it was becoming to expensive too maintain the service for free. Bandwidth and servers cost quite a lot, and even though Sony gained a lot of customers who have been very happy with this service, it's now time for those customers to give something back to Sony!

Sony is very aware that people are not happy with this change, and is trying to make it as pleasant as possible by offering certain bonuses that will only be available to those who have opted for the paid service.

How does four free games per month sound? These consist of a Playstation Network title, a PS1 classic title, and two PSP mini titles. Yes, that's per month, and for the first month Sony is offering Wipeout HD, Fieldrunners, Age of Zombies, and Destruction Derby. While your subscription is intact, games from previous months are still accessible.

Just like users of Xbox Live have early access to demos and betas, users of the Playstation Plus service will also have this advantage, as well as important discounts on avatar items, some going as high as 50%.

If $49.99 a month sounds expensive, then users can try it for 3 months instead, for $17.99. No monthly payment option has been announced, and even if it would, it'd probably be too expensive to be worth it. Those who don't mind paying $49.99 for a one year subscription, and do it sometime between June 29th and August 3rd, will receive a full digital copy of Little Big Planet! This copy will still be usable even after the subscription expires, so it's quite a good deal.

Sony probably won't be able to offer this much free premium content for long, so take advantage now and subscribe, to get as much free content as possible!