Aye these are my sentiments pretty much - sensibly done product placement is fine, but it should go no further than that.

Oh, you forgot something else too; Sony removed backwards compatibility, and then proceeded to start releasing their back catalogue as paid downloads. If that's not barefaced cheek I dont know what is...

Now that I think about it... it's somewhat our fault that we don't get DLC firsthand or even at the same time. Xbox users actually back up their company... with cash. We Don't, thus Sony doesn't feel obligated to take Microsoft's offers on.

Essentially, all Microsoft has to do is reach their hands into their user money stockpile, pull out a wad of cash, smirk at us, and chuck it over to the DLC scale of fate.
While Sony just reaches into their tattered coin profit purse and pull out the equivalent of some sea shells, laundry lint, and a bird egg in cash (nothing) and set it on the scale...

We just don't have a leg to stand on in DLC trades.

PC users? It's strange but, Microsofts probably pulling the old "a family that pays together stays together" string on ya.

PC users are reliant on Steam, which is run by Valve. And they cant exactly be short on cash, maybe they just didn't feel the need to get into a urinating contest with MS, who knows?

And Sony, again, are hardly short on cash (they have a record label, make TVs, laptops, stereos etc etc). They have paid for similar deals with other games, but no company can afford to splash the cash on every single title out there. Its just the way the cookie crumbled.

Actually, Sony may be shorter on cash than you think... lol

Record Label: Not really doing so hot as CD sales are dropping and they don't get near as much cash off of their MP3 DL's as Microsoft and Apple earn. Problem is that they pushed so hard for so long for the whole Blue Ray/Music CD products to stay viable that they dropped the ball on locking down good MP3 profits.

PSN: They foot the entire bill out of their profits for PSN. Then take into account that across their many divisions, sales have been dropping very low in comparison to their Korean competitors. Which is why they had so much trouble countering the hacking issues last year and this year. Also, their arrogance led them to supply PSN with shoddy malware protection.

TV's: Sony is losing their ass in the TV market to their Korean competitors. There was a news story a while back about Sony getting a new CEO who was going to vastly restructure the entire company with a focus on their TV's (with a focus on integrating all of their systems under one online umbrella like Microsoft has already done...) and the PlayStation brand, because they had been in the red for quite a while and their debt was quickly approaching the billion dollar mark.

For anyone who thinks that Sony isn't on the edge... they're struggling about as bad as they can be right now. This new CEO is even heavily considering the idea of having PS owners pay for PSN in a manner comparable to Xbox LIVE just so that they can keep offering it. They simply don't have the cash to afford the entire bill for much longer.

0.o Oh deary deary me. Still, I think the fact that they finally got a medium to catch on (blu-ray) should ultimately save them.

But that's the problem, Blue-Ray sales aren't catching on. Nobody's really paying the extra money for the Blue-Ray discs, they're going with the cheaper regular-old DVD, or simply buying Downloaded Digital Media.

Sony spent a ton of money defeating Microsoft and the bid for HD DVD, but it's for a product that a majority of consumers really don't want to pay that much extra for.

When Sony pinned their hopes on Blue-Ray being in every home, they neglected to think about five - ten years in the future, and now Netflix, Hulu, and a host of other streaming services are killing Blue-Ray sales.

Why would I pay for a Blue-Ray disc, when I can just DL my favorite movies (in 1080p mind you) for a quarter of the cost?

Sony is defiantly keeping the dream of Blue-Ray in every home alive, but it may ultimately end up being their downfall...

This is just it, whats holding it back atm is the cost, which is beginning to fall. We sell Blu-Ray players where I work, we barely sold a single one when they first came about, but as the price has come down, the sales have picked up markedly. Time will tell, but in all honesty with the advent of fibre optic interwebz, the physical medium may well indeed be on the way out. I'll miss it if that does happen, I love that 'new game' smell, and excitedly pawing through the game manual on my way home from wherever I bought the game

People are wondering why Bethesda hasn't even bothered to say "The patch is waiting for validation by Sony." A statement like that would mean that Bethesda's work is done, so now it's up to Sony, and I hardly find that controversial. If Bethesda is having trouble getting the patch to work on the PS3 without creating major bugs like previous patches (broken main questline, broken faction questlines, broken magical/elemental resists...), then they should just come out and say "We are having some difficulties and we are doing our best to resolve the problem as quickly as possible. Thank you for your patience." Apparently, the only thing Bethesda has said on the matter is something along the lines of "We have no information regarding patch 1.6," which is quite frustrating for PS3 users. The least they could do is inform their consumers.


Not only do I think in-game ads are in store for us in the next generation of consoles, but I also think that consoles will not allow used games to play/a game can only work on the first console it has been played on. And if that happens, then I'm done with consoles and will go with PCs. The only reason I even have consoles anymore is to share games with friends and whatnot. Take that away from me, and what do I get? Early access to DLC? Nah, I'll take modded content over that, no question about it.

I hear you about the 'New Game' feeling.

This just all but guarantees that once the industry moves to a fully-digital medium, I'll just be more protective of my physical disc games. I'll keep a system that can run them all in working order, but I will definitely be fiercely protective of my Elder Scrolls and Halo disc collections.

No touchy!

lol

I hear you on the validation front, if that was the case they would come out and say it. However, due to the overwhelmingly negative reception to earlier borked patches, I imagine the publicity guys are VERY loathe to admit they are having problems, so to me 'dunno' suggests 'theres a problem', seems logical to me anyways. But I will agree with you, I think it would show a lot more goodwill if they were open about it, sadly I doubt their PR guys see things the same way.


I'm a collector of old games, so I've already fairly protective of what I have