Sony needs to establish that the removal of Kutaragi and Harrison was actually to improve the company. Say what you will, but KK and PH could at least make you believe it was a god-in-a-box with their fanciful talk. After all, they were the familiar faces from the years of prosperity.
Hirai and Stringer are another kettle of fish. Hirai's been a public face for the company for a while, but he wasn't looked as the captain of the shit, that was KK. Phil could be relied on to push for creative/interesting titles from SCE and third parties.
But what have we gotten since then? A crippled 40GB SKU? A moderate price drop to "still expensive" status? An assload of titles with TBA release dates? Phil championed stuff like Heavenly Sword and Motorstorm, and at least those made it out within like a year. Everything else has just seen delay after delay after delay.
I'm not mad at Square, they made the smart financial move. How many people questioned the viability of FF13 on such a small userbase? I mean, the PS3 is selling horribly in the one territory FF13 needs it to do its best, JP. SCEJ doesn't even know how to promote their machine, why should Square take that chance? I bet they'd much rather have built it for the Wii from the start, b/c it's not like porting to the 360 is gonna ensure them any great success either. The whole situation is tits-up, and I can't blame any dev for being skeptical of the PS3 at this point.
What Sony HAS TO SHOW, are viable product for this Fall. Show stuff coming this year, but don't plaster LBP all over the front of it. We've been inundated with that game at every turn for a year now. It better be good. It better be the next-big thing. Because the rest looks like sequels to me. And what else is there really for this year? R2....what else? WKS is supposed to be Japan, and I'm assuming that's early next year, not this calendar year.
Where's the fucking music store, Sony? No wait, Howard? Isn't Howard Stringer from Sony Music. WTF, man? iTunes, Napter,... fucking bittorrent hacks are finding easier ways to list the Sony music catalog online than SCE is.
Where's the movie store? Who cares if you need a Netflix account for it to work, MS has beat them to a video store...twice. It's not anger, it's just disappointment. A media conglomerate can't get its various parts to work in sync. And they make the perfect delivery vehicles too, with cell phones, tvs and video games. They had the delivery system and the content and they do nothing.
I love my PS3, and hope someday it remembers its PS1/PS2 heritage and starts the flood of DOMINATE games. But for now, I'm a bit sad to see that the cracks in the foundation are only worsening. FF13 isn't any less interesting now that it's multiplat, but it now makes it abundantly clear that the PS3's viability is in question. PEACE.
