This subscription service is just not a good idea for consumers. Always beware when huge companies float trial balloons to the public about their intentions to start vaguely "offering premium content and services." But again, most people fail to read between the lines and blindly trust PR speak from a giant company that views consumers as sheep that need herded in the right direction. These kinds of initiatives start out innocuously enough. However, slowly but surely unwanted conditions creep in over time until the consumers can (only in hindsight) realize the faults made by the naivety of the collective, but they have no way to stop it.

This is what a truthful Sony-subscription press release would say:
For the next fiscal year, Sony is counting on preying upon some true idiots that cannot wait to relieve themselves of their personal disposable income to be test subjects for a recurring subscription to borderline-worthless piecemeal "premium services" in order to gain an additional revenue stream to further subsidize the costs of operating an already-profitable free worldwide online service.

Wow, I can't believe I just read all of those unabashed lies and exaggerations of grandeur. Do they give out a Nobel prize for douchebaggery? I guess the kids eat this stuff up. Corporate vice president speak translations below:

"You know, before Live, games were solitary experiences."
= Phil gives a big f-u to the Dreamcast and, you know, PCs.

"How many projects is Microsoft working on that qualify as full Natal games?"
"To talk about a number right now, not only to just dodge the question, but it's also difficult because... But I want to say it's not really about the number of games."
= Right now there aren't many non-ball-smacking Natal games far into development despite the developer list. Most developers will wait until launch or near launch before committing fully. They want to see if people will care about this thing enough to justify their investment.

"What about the Peter Jackson project? Why did the bottom fall out there?"
"For us, when we step back and we start looking at the Halo franchise, we want to make sure that we're ... You brought up the term earlier, we're not kind of over-saturating the market with Halo content."
= Peter Jackson backed out for various reasons including the Neill Blomkamp Halo movie debacle.

"Speaking of Rare, what are they up to these days?"
"Well, obviously, Rare was instrumental to shipping Avatars in a NXE."
= Rare is still being punished for their shitty post-Nintendo work. MS has no idea what to do with them, but they paid so much money to acquire them, they've got to give them something to do.

"Yeah, but should there be another platform in the future, do you think it will be easy to just shift all the stuff that you've done for Natal over to that system, much like you shifted Live from Xbox 1 to Xbox 360?"
"Yeah. Well, that is the different world we're in today, which I think is an advantage for us gamers; that as different technologies come online, you can actually find a way of moving..."
= Backwards compatibility is dead. The asshats at Sony and Nintendo have now committed to that in order to screw customers and maximize profits. MS will do what they do best and crib from other tech company ideas.

"We realized Microsoft is a platform company. We're a software company. We can build hardware, but at the core we build operating systems and experiences..."
= They realized this after their track record with this generation's hardware reliability became an embarassment that infuriated millions of gamers worldwide.

"I think the opportunity for us as an industry for both first and first party, is how do we make the overall audience bigger? How do we make it larger? Today, the controllers are barriers to some people. We know that."
= So did Nintendo. That was their exact philosophy circa 2006.

Seeing this abomination of a game makes me think of a famous quote from River City Ransom.

"BARF!"

PS3 games are great, but the removal of backwards-compatibility in an already-released console is one of the most egregious crimes against consumers the industry has witnessed. Of course, it's not as bad as an over 50% console failure rate, but no respectable corporation would ever release such a product without a massive recall, right? But, seriously, as a Sony fan and 1st day 60 GB PS3 owner, I agree that they should never be forgiven for the backwards-compatibility removal. Sony says, "just buy a PS2." Does your PS2 upscale graphics to 1080p? Does your PS2 use digital memory cards? Does your PS2 have a built-in Multitap? Does your PS2 have Bluetooth wireless controllers? Does your PS2 output both audio and video through one HDMI connection? I honestly don't understand how any gamer could discourage backwards compatibility, especially when we're talking about possibly the largest, best library of games ever released on one platform. A library that's still growing every week.

PS2 games will definitely be re-released in the future. So have fun buying them over again, morons!

So then this means I will get replacements for my harder-to-find titles such as:
- Live Freaky, Die Freaky! UMD Movie
- Silent Hill Experience Interactive Comic UMD
- Pursuit Force Demo Disc UMD
- Original 2005 PSP Video Demo Disc UMD

Yeah, right! This is BS! There is no way they will make the above titles available. I'll stick with my PSP-1000. It can play every PSP game including UMD discs, it accepts Pro Duo Memory Sticks (don't have to buy all new Micro-Memory Sticks - aren't Pro Duos small enough?), has better designed button placement, and I get it all on a bigger screen than the ridiculous PSP Go!

I have no problem with the content with these ads, but the frequency with which they are being shown is beyond obnoxious. You just can't watch many shows on TV now without seeing penis pill commercial after penis pill commercial after penis pill commercial after penis pill commercial. Enough already!!!

Forget it. If I can't even own a copy of a game physically or virtually, I'm not interested at all! Movies make sense to rent because they are, for the most part, one-time, passive, short viewings. My hats off though to players who like to be under obligations and time constraints when paying for games they don't even get to keep. I cannot be one of those people. Monthly cable, internet, etc. bills are more than enough. Yes, I use GameFly. But I use it to buy cheap, used games around $10 during free shipping sales.

Aha, I knew it. After I filled out the PSP survey and told them what a terrible, awful idea a subscription rental service would be, I come over here and see all the kids loving the idea. So it looks like it will be a reality then.

Why would anyone want to pay for games they won't own and yet have time constraints and obligations under which to play them? Did this idea work so well for Napster and GameTap?

No one except dedicated kids and teenagers will have time to bother with a PSP subscription service. The way to try out games should be FREE demos.

Green Day = Excellent, as always.

I tried. I really did. But I could not make it through the first episode. It was very clever at times. But it was not funny... at all. I may give it another chance if I ever catch it on again. Hopefully things wil gel together more in future episodes.