An Open Letter to Sony
Even though you're getting knocked around like a sapling in a windstorm, we're still rooting like crazed futbol fans for you. Here's why.
7/1/2009 8:43 AM | 9 Comments | Page 1 of 2
Scott Jones
Status: Coffee makes me feel 4-percent sexier.
Dear Sony,
Hey, it's Scott, your old friend at Crispy Gamer. What up?
I'm writing because, frankly, old friend, we're more than a little concerned about you these days. We wake up at night thinking about you. OK, so it was only the one time that we woke up thinking about you. Most nights we wake up thinking about world peace, or candy, or maybe Cheryl Tiegs .
The point is this: We are officially worried. It was kind of cute at first, watching you trip over your own feet after nearly a decade of market dominance. It was endearing when you showed off that silly Batarang version of the PlayStation 3 controller at E3 2005, only to backtrack in 2006 and replace it with the tried-and-true DualShock. And when you let that Gran Turismo demo at E3 2006 run endlessly for an impatient, toe-tapping audience of 3,000 industry folks -- beep, beep! -- we thought, "Hey, isn't it kind of nice to see that Sony is human after all? Isn't it?"
And then you announced, in a take-that-Nintendo-Wii move, that the DualShock would have -- surprise! -- Sixaxis control. Tilt it this way, tilt it that way, good times ensue. We wrung our hands. We thought, "Since when does Sony retaliate? Since when do they answer to anybody?"
Yes, we all wanted PSPs. You made us want them. So sleek, and black, and shiny! And then, suddenly, we didn't want them anymore. Watching UMD movies was supposed to be cool. But it wasn't. Especially when it cost $29.99 for a f***ing copy of "Be Cool." And we could watch the same damn crappy movie on our iPod Touch for a fraction of the cost.
Ever since all of this went down, Sony, you've been stumbling around like a beered-up bar patron trying to find the light switch in the men's room before he pisses himself.
It's hard to hear, I know. The truth always is.
Don Mattrick, that Prince Valiant-haired exec at Microsoft, has very publicly said that the Xbox 360 will "kill" the PlayStation 3. We slapped our knees when he said this. We thought he was doing stand-up. Oh, ho, ho, Don! You are hilarious! Then Don said it a second time. And a third time. And you know what? A little doubt crept in around the edges. We thought, "Oh, lord. Don might be right."
We see now what Don was doing in this moment. He borrowed a page from your own playbook, Sony. He talked tough. He acted confident. And if you do that long enough, and you look people in the eye when you say something, they start believing you.
So we all went home and looked askance at our PS3s. We thought, "What exactly is this thing? How did it get in my house?" We thought, "How did so many smart, rich people make so many poor, knuckleheaded choices?" We thought, "Future-proof? This thing isn't even Thursday-proof."
And then things started going your way, Sony! HD DVD dug its own grave, got into it, and pulled dirt over itself. Blu-ray had won. The war was over! Bring on the tankards of mead! Better still, 360s began dropping dead as if a plague had swept through Game Land. Red Rings of Death were everywhere. Cardboard coffins filled with dead 360s shipped to and from Texas at an alarming rate.
