Originally Posted by
Drageuth
This is above and beyond the regular online services, though. For $50/year, you get new free games pretty much every week (quality of the games vary from shitty PSN titles to AAA releases) plus additional discounts. The free games are conditional upon your subscription -- that's the only thing you lose if you cancel. Anything I buy with an additional discount will remain tied to my account. This has nothing to do with multiplayer or any other online service -- all of that is outside of the Plus subscription.
The difference is you need Gold to play multiplayer (and watch Netflix and other online services, I believe) on 360. You don't need Playstation Plus to do anything on the PS3 -- it's just an additional service for people who do want to pay a "membership fee" (essentially) to get additional discounts and some free games.