Joystiq [PlayStation]

"December 12, 2006: Sony claims Wii is "more of a novelty" despite Wii sales doubling PS3 sales". Really? That's fine. The sales weren't quite double at that point. Both were still in extremely limited quantities, albeit the Wii was able to accept more pre-orders. If the quote was from February 2007, then yes, sales are more than doubled against the PS3. Novelty items do sell fast and furious for a while, though, then trail off. Is the Wii a novelty? After we try out true games and not sets of minigames that work well, we'll see. But the Wii is cheap, it's fun for everyone, it's being marketed across the internet as the "it" item for this year. It's got a lot of backing. The only backing Sony's getting is into a corner, with a knife in its back.

The chart depicting "absolute console prices" clearly shows that the PS3 isn't the most expensive console released, as claimed. If the chart weren't so blurry, we'd know if under the heading it said "inflation taken into consideration" or "inflation not taken into consideration". Regardless, the PS3 costs marginally more than the Sega Saturn and whatever the CD-L is. It costs less than the 3DO and NeoGeo -- both are highly acclaimed cult systems. So is the Saturn. Look on eBay. They're respected. Bad chart. Next.

"Microsoft shoots for the moon. Sony shoots for the sun." Sure, Ken Kutaragi certainly has... a way with words, but is this really false? We don't know yet. We've been to the moon (meaning stuff we've seen before, Microsoft) and the PS3 is chillin' there with you right now, but in a few years, Sony will create a gigantic slingshot on the moon and hurl itself right towards Helios, the sun god. Does it not take longer to get to the sun than the moon? Anyone can get to the moon (figuratively). It's harder, costs more, and takes more time to get to the sun. Get it now? Stop taking quotes out of context. Next.

"4D Graphics". Whatever. It's a facetious claim, since 4D doesn't exist in this universe. Using it against Sony is just as facetious and useless.

The XBox Live comparisons... oh, lord... of course. How long has Live been around, growing and maturing, getting updates, repairs, tweaks, and most importantly, created by a company that has pretty much built the computer/world-wide-web world as we know it today? Sony is doing what it can and it's got a pretty competent service -- plus it's free. No size limit on PS-Store files... that's how we can get stuff like Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection in 1080p downloaded. They've got a point with finding friends in games. We'd like that option... but we don't know what's coming in the update in March.

Blu-ray that you don't need? Shut up. Why would you show the 360 with the HD-DVD drive attached to it if you don't care about next-gen formats? If you want to keep playing games on DVD's, you're going to be pretty sorry in a few years when Sony launches their Blu-rocket from your moon base towards the sun. Isn't it nice how using the quotes you used against Sony proves more effective in debunking your lyrical claims?

They use a chart compiled by Kotaku of all blogs (clearly the most reliable and trustworthy...) indicating selling prices of the PS3 on eBay -- averaging well over $2000 before launch and dropping to a $724 average at the end of December. Averages are funny things, you see. Were these based on medians, means, ranges, did they use statistics or basic division? Regardless, part of the lowered average over the course of a month was the saturation of eBay. There were so many PS3's being auctioned there was a large public outcry against these scalpers, so people stopped being stupid and started bidding smart. Sony still got the money from the initial sales, so what does this chart prove anyway? That consumers got sick of scalpers? Nice try.

The Halo 3 against Killzone 2 montage... since this is clearly from a 360 standpoint, do you really think they'd be opening up to another game that was foolishly titled a "Halo-killer"? Saying that Killzone sucked and flashing scores that, in all fairness, aren't necessarily low, is pretty foolish itself. If a game is lower than 5 (5 is "average", you know), then it's not that great. If it's beyond a 7, it at least merits a rental.

Using the Phil Harrison voice-over... while funny for about five seconds, you soon realize it's a clipped and looped audio file completely taken out of context. Pretty poorly. It brings nothing to the table except you like to fiddle with audio files. Good job.

They used another quote from Krazy Ken Kutaragi, but it's cut into two parts and since I don't know if it really was one quote or a mangled edit of two different quotes mashed together, we're going to skip over it. The 360 was released when the PS2 was still at its prime, anyway. So the 360 did have to compete with it. That's how competition works.

Finally, "How you killed your brand" is blatantly false. These guys obviously believe Sony is based solely in the console market. Their PC's are selling very well (thanks for the crappy Vista, Microsoft...) and the Bravia TV's are making up for the slack in other Sony-realms. Sony hasn't killed its brand. It's stumbling, but death is a far exaggeration. We love jumping to conclusions when a system has only been out for a few months too, but let's be realistic and let time judge.

I think that really about covers it. Overall, it seems like another attempt at viral marketing on Microsoft's behalf, whether it was planned and planted or by an overly-zealous fan that hates Sony so much they'd sit down and do this. Hmm, which seems more likely? Whatever the case, that's our rebuttal and we're stickin' to it. Feel free to add your own two cents. We're going to continue building that slingshot so we can aim for the sun. See you next-gen, everyone!