You can see that Microsoft is looking for reasons to continue to justify their paid service, as PSN closes the gap between the two platforms’ features offered to users. One of the few key advantages that XBL has boasted is cross-game voice chat, and that feature is slated to come with the next PS firmware update.

These rewards are a nice way to give back (mostly) to Gold members, but it would still come out better for these players to not pay for the service and have no rewards. I’m curious to see what happens when PSN matches XBL, including its Netflix addition.