Sony Flame Baiting is so 2007

The prestigious Jim Sterling loves the PlayStation 3 so much he has taken it upon himself to be Destructoid’s lead Sony basher.  As the #1 PlayStation fan, only Sterling in his infinite wisdom can point out Sony’s shortcomings.  Nevermind the fact that you have heard them all before, time and time again! In his latest rant he gives us a history lesson on why one should hate Sony.

Jim squarely places most of the blame with Sony PR.  He even goes as far back to mention the “Ridge Racer” incident to keep his article completely topical and timely.  He reminds us of Sony’s former cavalier attitude and shoe horns this into Bobby Kotick‘s recent comments about supporting PS3.

“They [Sony] have to cut the price, because if they don’t, the attach rates are likely to slow. If we are being realistic, we might have to stop supporting Sony.”

– Bobby Kotick Activision CEO

So this alleged multi-platform site justifies Activision‘s arrogance at the same time that it reinforces a near ancient notion that Sony is arrogant? Furthermore 2008 was a great year for PlayStation and Activision.  According to Kotaku, PS3 and PS2 was second only to World of Warcraft and in total accounted for over 40% of Activision’s home console revenue.

“Let’s get one thing clear right now — Sony needs Activision more than Activision needs Sony. Activision makes a metric fuck-ton of money on the Wii, PC, Xbox 360 and DS. It could halt production of all PS3 games today and still be rolling in money tomorrow.”

– Jim Sterling, Destructoid writer extrodinaire and PlayStation’s #1 Fan

Activision would be ill prepared to board up their windows in what would surely be a huge PlayStation fan backlash.  At the end of the day it was just noise and rhetoric. While Activision can certainly still make money without Sony, there is always more money to be made if there is another platform available.  Just ask EA about this strategy.  Activision would release Modern Warfare 2 for toaster ovens if they had a developer API.

Sony is well aware they have the highest priced console on the market, and all indications point to a cheaper PS3 being made available before Christmas.  Yet somehow I doubt even a price drop will shut Sterling up.

Why is it that no one has any constant drum beating about Microsoft’s audacity when they released the Xbox 360 too early?  Where are the pitchforks and torches when referring to Microsoft’s three or four year product lifespans? Oh, that’s right, Xbox 360 owners are all too eager to line up at the post office to ship their consoles in for a “hardware refresh” every 6 to 18 months.

News flash – Sony has already delivered on a 10 year lifespan.  The PS One was on store shelves well after PS3 was released (11 years later).  The PlayStation 2 is still going strong in it’s ninth year with over 65 games coming to the aging platform this year.  Compare this with the complete lack of support for Xbox shortly after the 360 was released.

Was Sony being autocratic to drop UMD from the PSPgo?  Is it pompous of Sony to deliver a reliable, fully functional gaming network completely free of charge?

Sony is a large entity, and large entities who make missteps quickly reorganize and rectify those mistakes.  Considering everyone was ready to put a fork into the PS3 a year after its release, it’s not a stretch to call the PS3 an accomplishment at this point.

If Destructoid keeps up this flame bait they might as well rename themselves to SelfDestructoid.