If I were to ever find a document containing Sony's official procedure for making announcements I think I'd find something relatively similar to the title of this article written on it. To any ravenous Sony fanboys that are already primed to leave a negative comment without even having read the rest of the article, go over to my collection page for a second. Go ahead, I'll wait right here. Did you see the Playstation 3 and PSP games in there? Yeah, I own both, so don't go flaming me for being an Xbot or...whatever asinine term you use for Nintendo fans.

It goes without saying that everyone looking forward to the PS3 was taken aback when Kaz Hirai dropped the "599 US dollars" bomb on us back at E3 2006 (cue Lex Luthor). Six hundred dollars was an absolutely absurd price and even though a lot of us (myself included) paid it at launch we did it begrudgingly. Analysts and everyone else kept calling for a price cut on the PS3. They all said that $600 was too high and that in order to compete and create a larger install-base Sony would have to cut the price at some point. Naturally everyone was excited when Sony announced that the price of the 60 GB PS3 was dropping from $600 to $500. That was still $100 more than the high-end Xbox 360 but hey, $100 is $100. As was expected, interest in the machine increased and a huge sales spike followed. Sony had seemingly done something right. Then we all find out that what we thought was a price cut was really a liquidation sale. Sony made the announcement that production had ceased on the 60 GB and that when they were gone they would be replaced by a new 80 GB that cost...599 US dollars. Did I mention that the hardware emulation had been replaced with extremely sub-par software emulation?

Like its giant obelisk console counterpart, the PSP hasn't been the easiest sell either. In both the United States and Japan the system was consistently outsold by the DS Lite, typically by a wide margin. Sony figured that, hey, if Nintendo can release a remodeled system, so can they. Thus at E3 2007 the world was introduced to the PSP-2000, colloquially known as the PSP Slim. The announcement was great for Sony as they unveiled a system that offered numerous improvements, the best two being improved battery life and shorter load times (the two things most decried on the original PSP). Well, the load time improvement remains, at least for newer titles. However, the battery life improvement wasn't as advertised. Sony explained that the PSP-2000 would indeed have longer battery life...if you were using the PSP-1000's battery...huh? Even if you weren't like me and didn't trade in the original PSP toward the new PSP thus leaving yourself without a PSP-1000 battery, the PSP-1000 battery was too big for the PSP-2000. So, if you actually had an original PSP battery to use it would stick out and make your system lop-sided. You'd also have to order a special battery cover from Sony in order to cover it. Lastly, this is probably just me being upset over not paying attention, but Sony also announced a video out feature that would allow PSP owners to play PSP games on their TV. However, you have to have a progressive-scan TV for this to work. This means that SD television owners (the majority of TV owners) cannot make use of this feature but hey, at least we can watch UMD movies on our TVs. Yeah, as if most people own any.

I don't think this next one counts as announcing good news and then messing it up so much as it counts as Sony throwing salt in gamers' wounds. Lair was a game that almost everyone who owned a PS3 was looking forward to. It was an aerial dragon combat game from the makers of Rogue Squadron and it looked amazing. Now, I've never played Lair but general consensus claims that the game's controls are more or less broken. However, that's not the point. Despite not announcing anything good, Sony proceeded to step 2 anyway and sent out a reviewer's guide for Lair. Yes, it wasn't that Lair was a bad game, it was just that every professional reviewer in the industry, you know, people who play games for a living, wasn't playing the game correctly. Wow.

Though I could personally care less, most gamers were upset by the fact that the PS3 controllers would lack any kind of force feedback. Sony told a couple of different lies as to why this was. They told us that the tilt-sensor wouldn't operate properly with rumble weights and they told us rumble was a last-gen feature that wasn't important anymore. However, we all knew that they just didn't want to pay up to Immersion. Well, Sony eventually did pay their settlement to Immersion and the rumble-capable PS3 controller rumors started flying. Sure enough, one of Sony's big announcements at the Tokyo Game Show was the DualShock 3, the Sixaxis with rumble weights they had previously told us was impossible. Now I'm sure you must be thinking, "What's the black lining on that silver cloud?" Well, North America and Europe aren't getting these controllers until Spring 2008, whereas Japan gets them next month. There's no logical reason why Sony would be doing this. Accessories are not games; they do not have region codes and they do not need to be localized. You could import a Japanese DualShock 3 from Japan next month and it would work with your non-Japanese PS3 (unless Sony devises some stupid way to region lock accessories). I understand that these things have to be manufactured and shipped, but if they have enough of them to launch the controller in Japan next month it shouldn't take them six months to get a launch supply for North America and Europe manufactured.

After the whole liquidation sale debacle, gamers everywhere have been waiting for a real price drop for the PS3. Recently, rumors have been circulating that Sony would be announcing a 40 GB PS3 and, at least in Europe, they have. The system, as stated, only has a 40 GB hard drive, it only has two USB ports instead of four, and it no longer has the card readers. That's not so bad right? It also has no PS2 backward compatibility. Yes, you read that correctly. I don't mean that it just doesn't have the Emotion Engine, I mean it has nothing. You put a PS2 disc into that system and it will have no idea what it is. Sony's hilarious reason for this? They claim that few people really use it and that it isn't a feature most people look for when buying a PS3. Ha, ha, and indeed ha. Do they even have any idea what gamers think of their system? Did they not hear the ire of European gamers when they launched the PS3 with its shoddy software backward compatibility? Did they not notice how many people were scrambling to get a 60 GB when it was announced that the 80 GB wouldn't have the Emotion Engine? Sony knows that the PS2 had the greatest and largest library the last generation but they claim that they don't need to rely on that library anymore because the PS3 is going to have a whopping 65 game available by this holiday season. Wow, 65 whole games? So how many of those are licensed titles, available on other systems, or just bad? Never mind the fact that PS2 games are still being made. Granted, Sony doesn't have the Wii advantage here. A lot of people skipped the Gamecube so the Wii being able to play the whole Gamecube library was a selling point. Odds are anyone interested in the PS3 is probably one of the 100 million PS2 owners out there. Still, there's nothing quite like buying a brand new, super powerful system and having to leave it's predecessor hooked up so you can play its superior game library, right?

Looking at their track record I don't think it's any surprise to anyone that Sony is in last right now. They started with two high priced systems, announced pseudo-price drops and have released way too many iterations of a console that's less than a year old. On top of that, it seems that everytime they announce something that makes gamers feel better about them they jab us with a cattle prod as soon as we turn around. At least we still have Final Fantasy and Metal Gear, right?

Comment Response 1: staley6565: So you read all of the "walls of text" and couldn't find a point anywhere, huh? Did you try reading the title and the first paragraph? I'm going to assume you didn't less you wouldn't be complaining about my lack of a point. My point is simply that Sony's PR has been terrible this generation (which, if you notice in the comments, other readers were able to infer that). Everytime they announce something that sounds like good news they immediately follow it up with something bad or something that takes away from that news. As for my "simple history of things", those are what most people like to call support. You know, making a claim and backing it up with examples and facts instead of just spouting of baseless nonsense?

Secondly, you claim that lack of backward compatibility is not a big deal if you already own a PS2. Have you considered things like clutter or lack of inputs? For example, my TV has three inputs in the back, and one is taken up by my DVD player. That leaves me with two open inputs and given that I have 7 systems that need them, I have switch boxes connected into them. Fortunately, when I got my PS3 I was able to simply replace my PS2 with it. Had I not been able to do this all of my slots would have been full and if I ever had the need to install something else it would have come down to swapping cords. A minor annoyance, but an annoyance avoided by my backward compatible PS3. That's not even taking into consideration the amount of electrical outlets I need. Secondly, there's the issue of shelf space. Using myself as an example again, I have six spaces for my seven systems. As it is my Dreamcast has to rest on top of my Xbox so everything fits (though with your ideas on money you'd probably just recommend that I buy a bigger house, more on that in a second). Then you proceed to put words in my mouth, claiming that if Sony didn't release the absurd number of SKUs that they do that I'd be complaining about them forcing us to buy things. Let me start off by saying that I've never complained about Sony forcing anything on me. I didn't complain about it in this article and I've never complained about it elsewhere. In fact, and I'm not alone here, I hate the multiple SKU system so many seem to be embracing. I'm sure most remember back when systems came out and they only came out in one version. If you went to a store and asked for that system you got a system that was the same as every other one.

Not to mention the fact that software emulation would not bring up the price of manufacturing the hardware. Also, just last year Sony was calling bacwkards compatability a core value that was vital to their brand.

You end on a note that is just ignorant, claiming that $600 is not a lot of money in "the real working world." Wow. I'm not sure going to college and working part time in a grocery store counts as this "real working world" that you refer to, but I'll use myself as an example once again. I make roughly $150 a week working the hours that I can. Every week I deposit half of that toward my tuition and take out 25 for gas money. Then I pay $100 for my car insurance bill at the end of every month. This means that every month I make around 150-200 dollars that I don't have to spend on bills (so that's 3 months for me to earn "not a lot of money"), and I don't have anywhere near the amount of bills people in the real world have. Yeah, maybe you have a high paying job that allows you to drop $600 on a luxury and not even bat an eye, but saying that $600 isn't a lot of money just makes you sound like a pompous fool.

Comment Response 2: Charlie2688: Holy crap man.You do realize people are going to read the comments you post right? Grammar and mechanics are your friends. Using the right words might help too (hint: accent is not synonymous with accept). You start out by saying that I'm acting like Sony has wronged me personally...yeah, whatever. Then you tell me that articles like mine are the reason that people have a negative attitude toward the PS3 and can't explain why. What do you think all that text up there is? Oh look, it's me explaining why Sony has such a negative image right now. I'm also curious as to when exactly I bashed the PS3. As far as I can tell I was pointing out flaws in Sony's marketing department the whole time.

You then claim that everyone has forgiven Microsoft's problems. This is something you do throughout your entire comment. You're trying to attack me and yet you lump me in with every Sony hating fanboy out there. Anyway, it's called being relevant and being inspired to write something. The height of the 360's Red Ring issue was over the summer when the warranty program went into effect. Why would I write about something that saw the height of its news coverage months ago? Sony just announced their new, non-backward compatible PS3 yesterday and that news inspired me to write this. Trust me, everyone hasn't forgiven Microsoft. Hell, there are people out there who haven't even played Halo 3 yet because they're waiting for their consoles to be repaired.

You tell me to look at some of the brilliant comments (a category which your comment does not fall under) here on GameSpot about backward compatibility. So people screamed when Sony focused on backward compatibility and people screamed when they stopped focusing on it? Here's a crazy thought, do you think that maybe those were different people screaming both times? Obviously if you have no interest in the PS3's library you're not going to buy one just to play your old PS2 games. However, if you're like me and are interested in the PS3 but also have over 100 PS1 and PS2 games with limited system space then backward compatibility is obviously important to you. Plus, the backward compatibility issue is another example of Sony directly contradicting themselves as they are so apt to do.

You follow that up by telling me to accept (or accent, as you put it) the fact that I'll never be happy with what Sony does. Again, lumping me in with the Sony haters. If you notice I actually own a PS3 (something, based on your collection page, you can't say I might add) and yeah, I have some problems with it but not because of Sony's PR tactics. Why would I have a problem with the console because of Sony's business practices? You go on to follow step 2 of Sony's announcement procedure and completely contradict yourself. You accuse me of forgiving Microsoft for all their flaws and then go on to say that Sony's negative image isn't their fault its the fault of all the people complaining about the PS3. Why do you think people are complaining about the PS3?! Oh wait, it's because it's cool to hate Sony, right? It has nothing to do with any of the mistakes they've made so far this generation? Also, the reason you don't hear people complain about the 360 as much is because the Red Ring of Death is the only major thing people tend to complain about and Microsoft has taken steps to correct it. They spent 1.7 billion dollars to give every 360 owner a three year warranty and they just started releasing new systems that have all of the cooling components they should have had since day one. Sony even has Microsoft beat in this department! They have a better built and more powerful system than Microsoft does. The only reason they attract negative press is because they keep lying to us and contradicting themselves.

Lastly you speak of Lair and I'm not sure you read that paragraph right. You say people like to knock it without having even played it and that wasn't even what I was talking about. I talked about the ridiculous assertion that Sony made claiming that reviewers had all reviewed the game wrong. Here's a math tip for you. You claim that if so many people played Lair at a friend's house that it would be number one in sales. Other than the obvious fact that it wasn't, if all those people played it at a friend's house that means they didn't buy it.

You conclude your rebuttal by saying that blogs like mine will never help change Sony's negative image. You know what will? If Sony stops pulling crap like I've described above.