Eh, at this point in time i just hope both consoles burn to the ground at launch. Between all the bullshit, the nda's, the PR dick waving....if both companies end up eating crow maybe we'll get a more mature stance nextt ime round with more transparency.
Right now all I can seem to be hearing about is manufacturers running round like school kids in a playground trying to slap one another around with insults and all sorts of rhetoric and bullshit with industry journalists trying to do all the PR damage control.
Maybe both companies should pick their stance, stop watching one another going tit for tat in little media skirmishes and just get all their own shit sorted before pointing fingers.
Industry is a fucking parody of professional work places.
This is strange to me as I, personally, don't necessarily think the companies are at fault. Both Sony and Microsoft cater to an audience. That audience is all of us.
Sony has been transparent with you. They had the unveil in February, told you what the console had, an idea of release window, some of their long-term vision, and then in June, they told you a little bit more, before finally announcing their price and launch plans. It was done in a pretty simple way. SCE trickled their policy plans and the internet built up a fervor themselves. You can't expect a company to go against their own strategy. You all know what you need to know. Microsoft did have some problems. Part of that stems from the DRM they wanted to enforce, and the subsequent backlash, and part of that is unfortunately people constantly creating negative news regarding their console and its various issues. They try their best to manage this news, but that hasn't really worked out well for them. You can't fault them for being poor at handling a variable they didn't expect.
Here is a simple truth though.
Behind the scenes, many things happen. Good and bad. The situation can be quite dynamic. It's unreasonable to expect these companies to feed you and be more transparent, because gamers do have the tendency to blow up issues really huge. In the case of Microsoft, every little negative bit of news is magnified even further because they ran out of the gate by putting their face flat on the floor first. They're playing the game but just really poorly.
I agree with you that the industry has some real problems in general though, maybe for other reasons.
