Sony is royally screwed

And I am SO pleased.

The Playstation 3 is a dud. Look anywhere within the gaming scene and you will find articles about it, but in a nutshell, most retailers are facing a wave of returns of PS3 consoles - and that's when Sony had highly limited production. As soon as they millions of consoles that are currently in production are shipped to the US early 2007, Sony will face HUGE losses; in fact, those losses will be so big so as to threaten the company itself - according to Sony themselves. Howard Stringer suggested that in a number of interviews, as did Kaz Hirai, president of Sony America.

Why am I so pleased? because they do not respect us consumers, repeatedly treating us with extreme arrogance. Consider the following, just from the past couple of years:

• Sony releases CD's with rootkits, affecting millions of consumers of their music CD's
• Sony tries to shove their stinking closed standard Bluray technology down everybody's throats, just like they did with Betamax; not surprisingly, this was destined to fail, and is starting to fail big time. Considering that Bluray was such a huge bet for Sony, it will be their downfall
• Sony sticks Bluray into the PS3, making the device uber-expensive for no reason other than trying to shove Bluray down our throats. Not only that, but because production of the Bluray drives is so expensive, Sony ends up losing about $500 for each PS3 made, hoping that they would be able to nail the consumer market and make the money on the backend. The implication? we consumers are so stupid we would not realize this tactic

These are just examples. Sony is a company that needs to be severely humbled before it is completely overhauled, and Stringer is not the guy for the job. But that's a different story.

The real story is the utter and complete failure of the PS3. Not only is Sony scheduled to lose many billions on Bluray, the PS3 was specifically the device that would have allowed them to make it back down the line. PS3 is essentially dead. It's been selling under retail on eBay since before Christmas, and if you really want one (why would you?), you can pick one up pretty much anywhere due to so many returns.

Counter this with the Nintendo Wii that has stormed gamers away from Sony, and oddly enough positioned Microsoft well to bypass Sony as well, with the simple time-to-market advantage of the XBOX 360. You can't find a Wii anywhere, there are zero returns, and the device is getting all the attention with its innovative controller. Even with increased production, they get literally stolen off the shelves whenever a shipment appears. Wii's are still holding prices around $450 on eBay even post-christmas, or double their retail price. Oh, and did I mention that Nintendo has managed to bring over five times as many Wii's to the US as Sony has PS3's?

I had a chance to play the Wii, and I'm in love with it; I hadn't planned on buying any of the newgen consoles since we are perfectly happy with the PS2, Gamecube and XBOX we have, but it took 20 minutes of playing Wii Sports with the Wiimote to get me totally hooked; of course, I can't find one anywhere yet. But rest assured that eventually I will. PS3? forget about it. Not interesting in the least. All it has is somewhat improved graphics. Big frigging hairy deal.

Ah, the beauty of a large corporation facing the results of their own extreme arrogance. Excuse me while I go short some Sony stock. Should be fun.

Windows Vista

OK, it's a long and somewhat technical note, but I'm posting a link anyway. But it's worth the time spent reading it.

My biggest hope in the world is now...

... that this pans out in humans.

Click here for the article referencing the study.

Hidden Assumptions

I've been talking to my good friend recently about our joint plan to visit each other's country together - nothing remarkable except for him being iranian - and a few things have crossed my mind with regards to this mess called the middle-east.

You know how whenever there are discussions of various peace plans, there are these arguments about what kind of pre-conditions must be accepted by the sides in order to come to the negotiations? well, nobody ever talks about a couple of particular aspects, and yet they are arguably the most critical in allowing a negotiations to happen: the hidden assumptions.

What am I talking about? well, there are a couple of powerful guiding thoughts prevalent in the thinking of each side, so powerful in fact that they color every discussion about some sort of settlement. They are so prevalent that they have become instinctive, part of each side's interpretation of the world. Yet, they are not necessarily true.

On the Israeli side, the guiding principle is that even with a peace agreement, the opposing side's goal would be to kill us. That's why Israelis have such a hard time giving up the golan heights, for example; it will make it more or less impossible to defend the country when, say, the syrians decide they have had enough peace and choose to make a surprise attack. Or at least so the common wisdom goes; whether this is actually true or not is a wholly different question (note that Israel survived much more difficult strategic circumstances when it was a lot weaker during the first two decades of its existence).

Think about this for a second; when you are coming to a negotiations with the basic premise that the other side is there simply for the purpose of buying enough time through whatever agreement is reached so that eventually they can turn around the betray you, well, that might guide your negotiations process somewhat.

I can't tell for certain what the hidden assumption is on the other side, but I think I have a good guess; it is that Israel is essentially imperialistic and will use the opportunity of having peace to build itself up to the point where it will be so powerful that it would willy-nilly walk over its peace-abiding neighbors at some point in the future. If I were to follow this train of thoughts, it makes sense that it arises from the repeated traumas of Israel's creation, tied as strongly as it was to imperial britain, almost seemingly a natural extension of it, and then Israel's remarkable success in gaining territory during the six-day war.

Of course, if this is your guiding thought process, then of course you would want as much assurance as possible that this latent imperialism will be contained, and how better to do so then to put the imperialist in an untenable strategic position?

Unfortunately, as is always the case, these hidden assumptions clash so severely that they make negotiations all but impossible. The only way through such an impasse is by having leaders on both sides who, at the same time, can see through this and put themselves in each other's shoes; this has happened twice in recent history, first when Begin and Sadat negotiated the Israel-Egypt agreement, and later on, when Rabin and the late King Abdullah did the same between Israel and Jordan. In both cases, there was strong opposition to the agreements on both sides, with seemingly logical explanations of why they were untenable in the long-term, and these arguments continue to this day. And yet, the agreement hold even in difficult times, most remarkably in Egypt effectively staying out of the recent Israel-Lebanon war, when they could have used that to their advantage to surprise Israel with a strike to the south - well, if you buy into the hidden assumption anyway.

The first step towards understanding is put yourself in the other's shoes. And the first step towards being able to do that is the examination of all of your own personal hidden assumptions about who the other is.

Bless these women - and protect them

Sudanese Taraji Mustafa (clip #1331) joins Syrian Dr. Wafa Sultan (clip #1050) in suggesting that Israel and its people are not what arab leaders make them out to be.

What I find striking about these women is that they are speaking out against much of depravity of some of these arab regimes - as women, generally voiceless in the places where they reside. That makes their words doubly powerful. I congratulate Ms. Mustafa on her courage and conviction, and fervently hope that she does not get "rewarded" for her actions.