Make no mistake though, PS3 owners will be paying to play online before this generation is done.

So you've ruled out the possibility that Sony might pressure Microsoft into unbundling basic online play from the Gold package and offering it for free? It may not seem likely but it's not impossible, especially with all the extraneous geegaws they've been bolting onto Gold lately.

They'll try like hell to make you want to step up to paid/'premium' but I don't think even Sony is foolish enough to take away anything that's currently free. RIGHT KAZ?

Uplay Win = Uplay Fail

Fair enough, even though what makes this newsworthy are the ever-increasing estimates of the failure rate being made by everyone who has some (varyingly accurate, admittedly) means to measure it while Microsoft refuses to divulge the actual percentage.

The last estimate being bandied about was, what, 54%? Now this one is 60%. What if the next estimate puts it at 66%, or two-thirds?

there a some very happy 360 owners some that have had consoles replaced on more than one occasion

I wasn't happy when I had to have mine replaced, but that's just me.

I'm on my third PS3 due to catastrophic hardware failures (PSU and BRD) both failure happened with in months of one another

For some strange reason (having nothing at all to do with actual PS3 failure rates), I find this hard to believe.