Dear Sony,
It's over.
I used to be so loyal to you--the first boom box I ever got was an inexpensive Sony cassette player that worked beautifully from day 1, until I accidentally dropped it down a flight of stairs. My first pair of headphones were equally inexpensive, and did their job beautifully. I was hooked. I was impressed by the quality of even the cheapest of your equipment. I swore by you, and would buy from you whenever I could. Even if your stuff was a little more expensive, I'd buy it because, hey--it was you. I trusted you. It was worth the extra 10-20% in the price.
Then I bought a Sony Clie PDA from you. It cost $40 more than an equivalent Palm Inc. model, but it was worth it, because, hey--it's was you. Or so I thought. In the first few months of ownership, I ran into completely random lockups that would erase every bit of data... taking with it my appointments, class assignments, and other irretrievable bits of data. The Memory Stick format it takes cost 20% more than any other memory card on the market because you try to force your customers to use only your proprietary formats. After six months, the screen backlight failed completely and I had to wait two weeks for you to replace it. While it was covered under a recall and was free to me, that's really no excuse for poor manufacturing in the first place.
I was losing my faith in you.
Then, not too long ago, under the guise of digital rights management, you put rootkit software on your music CDs--installing hidden backdoor software on the computers of anyone who inserted your music into their computer. My reaction--and a lot of other people--was
what the fuck were you thinking?! Your rootkit is so malicious that Microsoft released software to remove it. Otherwise, removal would nuke the entire Windows installation and completely trash the operating system.
How could you betray my trust like that? It's like you stopped respecting me.
I'm sure you've heard about the Apple and Dell laptops using your batteries that have been banned from flights... because of the piffling fact that several of them have burst into flame. The battery recall is causing you to hemorrhage money so terribly that the the only profitable bit of your business is your Playstation division, which you seem determined to sodomize with the PS3.
You're tying to force the Blu-Ray video format on me with the PS3. If you hadn't figured it out when Betamax, Memory Stick, and the PSP's UMD format all died pathetic whimpering deaths in the marketplace, no one is interested in your proprietary media formats. Demanding that Blu-Ray be put into the PS3 has increased the price well out of the reach of the casual gamer, and has limited production so much that it will be mostly unavailable for the holiday season. $499 for the non-upgradable base model? $599 for the premium model?
Are you fucking insane?! No thanks. Nintendo and Microsoft have been trying to get my attention for years now, and I have to say that I'm finally going to give them their chance. I can get a Nintendo Wii
and an Xbox 360 for the price of one of your premium PS3s.
Look, Sony, it was great for a while. I really loved you for a long time, but you've just got way too many problems. I can't see myself being with you now or ever again. You need to get your affairs in order, or you're headed for an early death. Maybe Microsoft will take you when that happens, I don't know. Frankly, I don't care any more. I just hope that when you hit rock bottom, you'll start working for the people who care for you, instead of forcing what you want on them.
Sincerely,
Marc
