Colin just bought a Sony Playstation 3.
He purchased it, ostensibly, as a way to acquire a supposedly ‘future-proofed’ Blu-Ray player at a reasonable price. I say he’s full of it.
Of course, he had incentive. Thanks to a promotion from everyone’s most-loathed big-box retailer, his final cost ended up being $299 (plus tax and shipping, presumably). This requires a bit of fuzzy math, but that’s the gist of it.
Am I angry or unhappy with his choice? Not particularly. Not being his conjoined… screw it- his siamese- twin, what Colin does in his free time (be it play PS3 or have masturbatory fantasies about his groundhog) is none of my business. But I feel a certain sense of disapproval, disappointment, if you will. Colin is, to his very core, a geek like me. He is as aware of the excesses of Sony’s corporate strategies as I am. And he doesn’t care.
Rootkits, the RIAA, the MPAA, ludicrous copyright claims… take your pick of Sony antics. They are the robber-barons of the electronics age. But their slick packaging and quiet Blu-Ray and built in DVD upscaling and their interface are apparently a lure too sweet to resist.
Well, not to me. I will never buy a Playstation 3. In fact, Colin will have to watch his PS3 carefully to make sure I don’t carry out my desire to place my testicles into it’s blue-lasered maw for a gentle suckling.
*DISCLAIMER: I own a Sony-Ericsson phone. The w810i. I purchased it through Amazon and MADE $100 on the deal. Every man has his price.
Some people might fault you for buying Microsoft products given their history:
suspect business practices, DRM, end-user privacy concerns, the treatment of its employees
In fact, you pretty much make a living off of Microsoft as a Network/IT Manager. And, ya, you own a 360. I guess it all depends on perception.
The joy that Colin’s purchase brings me knows absolutely no bounds. While I will directly not benefit from it or even be able to own one myself probably, I will now live vicariously through playing of MGS4.
By the way, you do realize you sound like a bitter ex-girlfriend with this post right?
No way, dude. If I were bitter I would stuffed a peanut butter and jelly sandwich into the PS3 slot.
Actually, it would have to be PB&J on a pita, but you get the point.
Your vociferousness about your Sony boycott sounds strange to a lot of us (especially those who don’t know how vociferous you are just as your general habit) because speaking to you is the first and only time we ever hear of such a boycott. While I don’t think anybody would go so far as to call Sony benevolent, it does seem odd that you sigle them out among all the other “evil” corporations of the world.
We hear calls to boycott Nestle, Del Monte, Bechtel/Haliburton, Behringer, Nike…and oh yeah, Microsoft, as Colin points out. But Sony? They just make decent enough consumer electronics at a not-too-outrageous price don’t they? (1st-gen PS3 perhaps excluded)
Every corporation’s first responsibility is to it’s shareholders, and it’s primary product is stock. In the persuit of maintaining a high stock price, every corporation is bound to piss off someone.
Well said.