eugene

i'm speaking from a merchant's perspective. the ps3 is a luxury console in the eyes of our store's customers. having backwards compatibility was a stepping stone to getting people to buy ps3's. the number of people who can afford a luxury system with so few games is quite few, even if this site's readership features a greater proportion of those who can. bottom line is that it is cheaper and more affective from a business standpoint to maintain repeat customers. sony made a mistake in changing target demographics from a larger one with the ps2 to a smaller one with the ps3. they should've foreseen the shift.

what irritates me is not that they didn't go the extra mile to put bwc on the 40gb. what bothers me is that it would've been so easy and was a major selling point for the ps3 in general. as an employee at a retail store, i know that customers are disappointed with sony's decision, a disappointment that keeps them from taking the bait of a $400 ps3.

but isn't the bwc on the 80gb version gimped? and reports suggest that the 60gb version will be replaced by the 80gb versions once the 60gb's are sold out. so i'm not sure that bwc is something that will always exist.

oh, and by "sub-$200 device" i'm obviously referring to the playstation2.

i think sony's new stance on backwards compatibility betrays a deeper issue at hand: sony completely misunderstood their target demographic for the playstation3. customers who buy a now sub-$200 device to play games are not typically the same customers who would buy a $400 game console (which itself is mired in electronics identity crisis). sony may spin their new lack of backwards compatibility as a step forward for playstation3 software, but let's face it - it's an attempt at force-feeding their loyal customers software for a system they weren't willing to purchase in the first place.

i've been a playstation fan for as long as they've been in the business, but this 40gb model debacle has really hurt my commitment to the sony brand.

this control scheme reminds me of the ps1 and ps2 metal gears. of course, they aren't mapped in the same way, but i imagine both have a bit of a learning curve. but just as you could do almost anything you wanted once you got used to mgs' controls, i bet you'll have that same feeling of freedom once you wrap your mind around assassin's creed's controls.

i'm definitely excited for th 14th!

sorry, "their ads" not "there ads".

it would be opening up new possibilities in advertising if it weren't such a shoddy attempt at doing just that. this is child's play, kitschy, the opposite of art. if real creativity replaced the amateurish "we're trying to be artsy" directive of this ad campaign, then yeah, i'd appreciate what it does for advertising. as it is, i appreciate this as much as i do those mass-produced impressionist paintings that you can buy at any target or walmart in america. in other words, it's been done before, and better.

i see these ads as symptomatic of sony's lack of vision and direction in this generation of consoles. there ads are just as mired in confusion as to whether the ps3 is primarily an entertainment hub or a videogame console as their corporate executives have been, and so remain.

whatever that was, i'm awestruck that anyone would dare to call it art. "we're sophisticated, we're edgy, we're different!" sony, you make an electronics device that plays shoddy ports of old games and blu-ray copies of talladega nights. you only hurt your own brand name with kitsch like this.

i didn't think it was possible for a console to jump the shark. thanks for proving me wrong, sony.

han shot first. 'cause that's how he rolls.