I've been thinking about this topic a lot lately. How could a company that I love so much get things so wrong? At one point, I made all of my electronic purchasing decisions based off interactivity with Sony products. While I still love Sony products and I still collect Playstion 2 games, I just can't support the Playstation 3. I knew that PS3 and me wouldn't get along during the 2006 E3. That price was so ridiculous. There were mutterings about weirdness before (remember the boomerang controller), but after seeing that price, that 3D0ish price, I turned my back on the PS3 and walked away.

Since then, there has been misstep after misstep: loss of exclusive games, no rumble, sketchy backwards compatibility (then no compatibility at all), etc. Even the Sony executives managed to breed unconfidence due to their inability to speak coherently: the PS3 is too cheap, it's a computer, rumble is last gen technology, etc. It's gotten so crazy that I just wanted to sit down and think a bit about when all went pear shaped.

First and foremost, the Blu Ray Player. All of the PS3's ills begin and end with the decision to sink or swim with the Blu Ray Player. I know that it still sticks in Sony's craw that they lost the VHS Betamax war and they want to make another Walkman since the iPod/iPhone has stolen all of their thunder, but it was too soon for Blu Ray. I'm sure that they were thinking about DVD's success for the PS2, but DVDs were already established and the PS2 was a semi cheaper solution (although you could always find cheap DVD players at Wal Mart). The fact that the HD standard is in flux should have been the clarion call that the time was not right to rely solely on Blu Ray (especially sincee there are much cheaper HD solutions than the PS3).

Second, the SIXAXIS has been a disappointment. Like I said before, that boomerang was the first sign of trouble. Then, remember what you were thinking when you heard about the "motion" controls . . . "They're copying Nintendo." Copying Nintendo isn't a crime, because everybody copies them eventually. They gave us rumble technology and analog control and yada yada yada. But, if you're going to copy, get it right. Making the SIXAXIS part traditional controller and part motion controller just dilutes it. Remember seeing Warhawk being controlled by it for the first time? When it's a novelty act, like After Touch in Heavenly Sword, it works, but any game that relies on motion controls without the option to turn it off fails (I'm looking at you Lair). The biggest problem with SIXAXIS is that it is utterly unnecessary (do we really need to go through the motions to shoot a freethrow? Really? Really?)

Third, the exclusive games are lousy. PS1 had its Battle Arena Toshinden and Jumping Flash, PS2 had SSX, but PS3 still doesn't have compelling tiles and it's almost a year old. Every game that is worthy of buying a PS3 is on the XBOX 360 also. Even the games that we were sure were PS3 exclusives are slipping (GTA IV, Devil May Cry 4). It's as if you have to wait until the game comes out just to know if it's a timed exclusive. To make matters worse, the games that are out on both systems run better on the 360. That is unacceptable for a console that was priced at $200 more. Finally, the games that did manage to stay exclusive aren't doing very well: Warhawk seems to be the best exclusive and it's not selling; Heavenly Sword looks great, but is short; and we already know what's wrong with Lair. For every MotorStorm, there's a DiRT. For every Resistance Fall of Man, there's a Gears of War and a Halo 3. Eye of Judgement isn't going to cut it.

Fourth, Sony just can't seem to stay on message. I'm an avid media consumer and I'm finding it difficult to figure out what Sony wants us to think about the PS3. It's been marketed as a super computer and a Blu Ray Player; rumble is last gen technology; muiltiple SKUs are a bad descision and then they're a good decision; backwards compatibility is necessary for a system, then it's software compatibility that is necessary and now no backwards compatibility at all. The messages are mixed and they still aren't sending the message that I want to hear. I'm sorry, but $399 is still too much to pay for a system that has no good exclusive games out now.