Speaking of Bullies ... Sony Turns to Corporate Douchebaggery

Kotaku is reporting that Sony has managed to win a major battle in the war against grey market imports, basically by suing the company into the ground. The company in question is Lik Sang, one of the largest import companies on the internet, and one that I've personally used in the past for games I knew would not be released stateside.

Never mind the fact that Lik Sang already had a British judge rule against them for selling the PSP without Sony's permission, and never mind the fact that Sony made the PSP region-free and is now trying to put that genie back in the bottle. Hell, let's even ignore the fact that Sony's own upper-tier executives in Europe purchased PSP's from Lik Sang because they couldn't get them from their own company.

Sony could have filed a single lawsuit and have seen this reach a decision, which is exactly what happened. Sony stooped to new lows by filing the same lawsuit in every single EU country, basically drowning Lik Sang in paperwork and lawyers fees. Sony wins because Lik Sang can't afford to defend themselves. The end result is that Sony didn't just say, "Hey, stop selling our stuff, if you don't mind." They proceeded to nothing less than thuggery by beating the company while they were down.

This story is a perfect example of just how desperate Sony is, and is basically lashing out in all directions at once. The lawsuit(s) simply doesn't make sense. Sony is basically attacking it's most passionate fans by going after a company that serves their interest exclusively. The only people that use import services are the hardest of the hardcore, the fans that want to play everything, regardless of where it came from. It's the exact opposite of the message they were trying to send by creating such a powerful console in the PS3, which caters to that same fanbase.

Now the real question is, what does Sony win by doing this? Are they protecting their profit margin ... after all, products sold in Europe are frequently marked up beyond belief because the market there is starved for these products. (Even with import markup, it's usually cheaper to buy grey-market than through retail channels.) Why wouldn't Sony simply cater to the customer instead, offering Europeans the opportunity to buy direct, or even lowering the ridiculous markup to something more reasonable to encourage purchasing locally? Or hell, why not even realize that you've continuously screwed this territory over with delays and "third-tier" status for so long, and that those customers matter too?

Well, it doesn't matter. Now that Lik Sang has curled up into the fetal position, Sony has vowed to do the same to anyone trying to sell a PS3 into Europe before the launch in that territory. Again, this isn't a matter of getting them to stop selling your products "illegally". It's a matter of ensuring that those companies, frequently very small operations, can never sell anything to anyone ever again.

I was a Sony fan for a long time. My living room TV is a Sony. I have several S-Video switches that are all Sony. I've had Sony cameras, camcorders, as well as a PS1, PS2, and a PSP (until I realized I'd never get a decent game for it). I have had DVD players, home theater receivers, and other electronics all from a company who's brand name was synonymous with quality. While I don't live in Europe, this activity affects me as well, and Sony just sent a message loud and clear that they don't want my business. It's the same message they've been sending for months, with the ridiculous prices on the PS3, and bad PR.

Sony's got their wish. I'm not a customer of theirs any more.

Wii Preorder Craziness ...

PS3 preorders went up earlier this week, sold out quickly, and then just about as many ended up on eBay. Surprise, surprise.

I've been hemming and hawing about whether or not to preorder a Wii this morning, but at 9:30AM, I decided to take an early lunch break and drove over to a GameStop store in Redmond.

I didn't even stop the car. The line was huge. No thanks, I'm done. There are reports of similar situations pretty much everywhere. Far more people waiting for the Wii (largely due to promises of larger supply), but most of these people are buying one to play. Including far more girls, which suggests that Nintendo is doing a good job of reaching outside of the "core gamer" market.

I guess I'll be trying to get one on a Sunday morning in November, likely freezing my ass off, but then again, that's half the fun. I think the local Walmart is open 24 hours. It would gall me to actually purchase anything in a Walmart, but being able to play the Wii several hours before anyone else sounds kinda fun.

Sony Finally Brings Good News

Just when you thought Sony couldn't get some positive press if they opened a dry cleaning business (groan) ... they manage to drop a couple bombs at the Tokyo Game Show.

First up, Ken Kutaragi announced that they're dropping the price of the 20GB PS3 to roughly $430 US. However, this price drop is confirmed to be ONLY for Japan. I don't get that move, and it probably has something to do with how the allocation of units is spread out amongst the territories.

In conjunction with that announcement, they also stated that the 60GB model would be "open price", which means that the retailers can sell it for whatever they want. That's NOT good news for consumers, as you can expect the price gouging to be widespread and rampant, since Japan is only getting 100,000 PS3 units total.

The second piece of good news is that they have relented and put an HDMI port in the 20GB model, meaning that the higher priced model has less to differentiate it. I'm not sure who'd buy a 60GB model now. Still, these changes mean that Sony realizes that they've painted themselves into a corner, and they need to get back in the good graces of the "core gamer".

What Would You Do If You Were Sony?

Jesus ... I'm not sure if Sony could be acting more like the fucking Keystone Cops if they tried. So what would you do if you were Sony, in the middle of what could only be classified as a PR disaster?

Apparently, Kazunori Yamauchi would feel free to make sure that the biggest game on tap for the PS3 launch ends up being the giant fucking albatross around the company's neck. In an interview with Famitsu, he revealed that the standard version of Gran Turismo 5 would ... get this ... come with no cars or tracks. You'll have to buy them all. For completists, apparently the pricetag to do this rings in at very close to $1000. The premium version of the game will have 30 cars and only two courses. All of this is far less than Gran Turismo 4 shipped with for a far inferior system.

Of course, if Microsoft were Sony, they would make sure that a Sony BMG music artist would be helping promote the biggest console launch around, in a delightful bit of synergy. Sony must have gotten wind of this and stole the whole idea, because how else could you explain Jessica Simpson and Epic/Sony BMG music running a contest where you can win an Xbox 360?

I keep wondering if things could get worse. I should probably stop doing that.

Sony PR Goes From Worse to Brain Dead

Update: OK, and killing all of your brand-positive advertising in Europe (where you're going to need a lot of it) isn't what I had in mind either. Apparently, SCEA's hired a new PR guy after Molly Smith bolted from the company, which certainly explains part of the company's complete disfunction. It'll be interesting to see if Dave Karakker can translate his experience shilling for Kahlua into getting people to buy the PS3.

Of course, when I suggested below that Sony needs to fix their PR image, I in no way indicated that a good way to do that would be to have Ken Kutaragi (the head of Sony Computer Entertainment America) tell everyone that the US is only going to have 400,000 units at launch, and Japan? Yeah, they get a paltry fourth of that (for a machine that should be far more popular in Japan than Microsoft's Xbox 360).

So who's going to be standing in line waiting for a PS3? Before any of you Europeans raise your hand, you'd better re-check the calendar, because none of you will be seeing a PS3 until March 2007.

Sony needs some good news, and pronto. At this point, I'd suggest that they either start making things up, or start paying bloggers like myself to start writing nice flowery prose about them. Anything to stop the bleeding, because there's only so much more of this that people will take before they just give up and either buy the console that's already out, or the one that will cost just a third the price of PS3.