That is... how to turn over Console War fate
Or also... what happens when an article is committed to those two: Davide Ambrosiani and David Famà! 
How could it have happened that the most important video-game Entertainment company is the principal cause of its own misfortune? How can Sony still be impassible and optimistic when its eyes are already weeping because it has just cut its own throat? How can Sony find the strength to cut again, and again, its own throat?
Well, it is sufficient to know how to surprise millions of customers with exceptional announcements...
Eyewitnesses...
The Ousider
by Davide Ambrosiani
Wake-up on Wednesday is already enough difficult, if, moreover, you are reorganising the mansard it is really lethal, but everything new is well accepted; and if in this particular moment gamers' community is in a total chaos maybe something new has happened...Not Half!
Having finished all my house-jobs, I'm going to open my PC and immerge myself in the "big net". News, articles and comments are wasted and console war is still the main topic of thousand of posts full of rage from both sides (ignorance seems one of the most democratic qualities) and nothing seems able to disturb the crusaders' routine.
However, around 10 o'clock in the morning, I start feeling the first waves of the greatest 2006 earthquake in videogames world. "It cannot be possible! They would loose everything!" - "IMHO, it is a fake" are the first comments of all forums. But, after a while, here is the confirmation: PS3 release date for Europe is postponed. And it is Sony Computer Entertainment (SCEE) itself that have made the official announcement!
All gamers are pain-striken: "How is it possibile? The have just started to accept pre-orders few days ago (September, the 1st 2006)! What are the reasons beneath the delay? And what about the 100 Euros I've paid in advance?"
Well, yes! Curious and intrigued by the news, I start "surfing" and in one instant I'm logged in 6 different forums. Some users are literally shocked, others are resigned (do they expect the news?) and then, obviously, there are the unyielding: "Better this way! They will improve the console (not very probable, r.n.), there will be less defective consoles (please see previous comment, r.n.) and there will be a greater number of consoles at launch (please, see the previous comments, r.n.)."
But, why such a news is creating all this scandal? Why Microsoft executives are, still, celebrating with champagne? Why Wii chances are increasing exponentially?
But above all, what will it happen now that the mother of all consoles have tempted suicide?
Read and you'll understand.
Clearly, it's still true that with the umpteenth cutting of its own throat, Sony is getting seriously hurt. Really!
Eyewitnesses...
The Insider
by David Famà
Sleepless night playing with Pro Evolution Soccer 5 and hoping the morning would never arrive. Another bloody day to work. For whom? Not really for me...but it is the society that obliges me, I have to follow its rules, I cannot run the risk of being found out!
I've gone to work, but it's all so tedious: colleagues are working hard and what can I do? It's 10 o'clock in the morning and I've already finished all I was in charge of (thanks to my brain and my 7 cerebellums). What can I do?
Ok, let's surf the Internet. It's not a gratifying experience, I feel it unnatural, as if I was not born for that world. However, maybe I'll be able to find some interesting news.
Nothing...still nothing...more of the same nothing: Internet, as suspected, is a useless tool dedicated to obviously defective beings who has always to care about things do not concern them. Wars, famines, subliminal messages and announcements: as the one from Sony that is postponing its new console release in the European market of about 6 months. Who cares! I already knew the news, there is nothing someone even only thinks and that I don't know. Well, I'm the ultimate intelligence, I am...I.
I'm reading a forum in which people complain about Sony announcement; I'm reading a forum in which people are complaining about other people because of Sony announcement; I'm reading a forum...I definitely should stop reading forums!
But what is happening? What are those "black" expressions on my colleagues' faces? Why are they looking at me? Is pity what I'm seeing in their eyes? What's happening with me...no, it cannot be...it cannot happen to me...a doubt, someone is insinuating a doubt in me. What can I do? I'm a PlayStation 3! I cannot have doubts!
Web Blood
by Davide Ambrosiani
Hard shot, very hard shot. As a body falling to the ground after a knife wound, also Sony appears deflated after its announcement: as if still worried for possible reprisals. Indeed, as expected, tons of people have changed their minds (deserters or wise men?!?, r.n.), even if it appears that will be the other Japanese company Nintendo the favoured in gaining from Sony difficulties.
"We will let you see a real worldwide launch!"
"Next-gen starts only when we say it does!"
Like in a cinema hall where always the same trailer is being projected while waiting for the delaying movie, with the audience murmuring annoyed, also Sony, in creating the first vapourware console of history, can see its fans murmuring annoyed, tired of being the target of all its lies.
And here it is the ex-console leader (we can surely call Sony like this from now on) bleeding, and this unstoppable hemorrhage of costumers can be easily tracked on the web, where fan-boys and not are feeling their leg pulled...again.
In several forums you'll be able to read first negative comments and "shifts of position", like the following posts, taken from one of the biggest video-game forums dedicated to Sony consoles, demonstrate.
Starting from the disappointed...
"also for me, I did not want to buy the 360 'cause in 3 months time I would have had the PS3 in my hands but now there are 7 more months and I think I'm gonna change my mind..."
Continuing with the totally converted...
"What will happen to who was so lucky to preorder it (the PS3, r.n.)? Will they be refunded? Ok, I think I'm gonna take wi60 (Wii + Xbox 360, r.n.)"
Finishing with a full shift of position without withdrawal...
"F@@K! F@@K! F@@K! I'VE JUST HEARD THE NEWS, 5 MINUTES AGO. I'M ANGRY!!! YOU SONY S******
F***, I'll go for Xbox! Now PS3 is dead for me!
Goodbye ken, goodbye Sony"
And they are not the only comments on Sony's "black" Wednesday.
Moreover, it's worth noticing that the acclaimed Blue-Ray, nearly the only cause of Sony PS3 delays in productions (500k PS3 will hit USA and Japan, not much for a company that has excluded Europe), is automatically labelled as a wrong choice, worth only of:
"Blue-Ray, f*** you"
What is, however, really astonishing is that a lot of people were able to understand well before Sony announcement that PS3 would not have been able to respect its release date. Because the launch was approaching to quietly and games didn't seem ready, in August, a guy wrote in one of the above forums:
"It seems to me that it is the least it can happen when the conceit goes over imagination. We have always delays on Xbox360 games and that is a well-known hardware, what can you pretend from PS3 and its odd number of SPEs? I would like to remember everyone that multi-thread programming is something semi-experimental especially when speaking of videogames and physics algorithm in real-time.
I wouldn't like to be in SCE (Sony Computer Entertainment, r.n.) President shoes...the quiet surrounding the console release is worrying...there will surely be the announcement of a delay."
Well, not only Sony has pulled our legs, but it was not even capable of predicting the consequences of a worldwide lunch, result achieved by simple but smart Internet users!
The failure of "Go where the heart takes you!" truth-value
by David Famà
There is no room for cowards, and there is no more room for "cunctators". Our era requires hard choices everyday, choices that will be able to change our life forever, choices that can and must scare us.
In this era, when serious topics are others, we are facing a benign Console War with three rival powers struggling for victory: Microsoft, Sony and "the neutral" Nintendo. Have we to choose? No fear, no withdrawal. I want to write an article so hard to be prohibited to minors under 18, I want to shudder all readers, I want to start a movement, I want to...destroy PlayStation myth.
The real question is: how much should a company be rewarded for what it was able to do in the past? Even if the answer appears complex, I'm sure Sony has by now consumed every bonus piled up with PS1 and PS2. PlayStation 3 is revealing itself as a vapourware console: badly born, without ideas, without games and with the pretty annoying slogan "Next-generation starts when we say it does!" (Kez Hirai, E3 2006)
No dear Sony, No dear Kez! If you allow me, WE decide when the next generation arrives: stop doing the clown, stop presenting yourself at video-game conventions with 4 CG trailers and a LEGO PS3 model, stop blaming everyone in the world while copying their ideas, stop thinking that being the "best in the world" means conquering Japan market. Stop!
It's 18 months since Microsoft presented, nearly on the sly, the Xbox 360, almost apologising for having done so much noise: some games were also presented with bad graphics because "the gamer has to see in-game scenes, not CG" (J. Allard, E3 2005), few cues and, again, apologies for having bother us. Sony, clearly, wasn't able to suffer the affront: thus, here it is Killzone 2, MotorStorm acrobatics, a Metal Gear Solid 4 trailer; and then, announcement, proclamations, verdicts...
- Ken Kuturagi (SCE President): "Xbox 360 is more a Xbox 1.5"
- Kaz Hiray (Sony CEO of America): "Microsoft is copying Sony"
- Phil Harrison (Sony Corporate Executive): "Sony is not arrogant and we are not losing the correct perspective"
...and lengthy applause for something, the PS3, no-one has seen. We all were there, at E3 2005, astonished and ready to swallow anything: Blue-Ray, hundreds of HDMI inputs, hundreds of Ethernet plugs, tens of joypads usable at the same time. No-one with even only a single doubt, no-one asking himself why the showed demos did not contain any sort of HUD, all amazed in front of the umpteenth nonsense of Sony Computer Entertainment.
Yes, exactly Sony Computer Entertainment, no longer (only) Sony: because we can call a friend with his (or her) nickname, but we all call acquaintances with their full name! We should have suspected it as soon as we've sees the boomerang joypad: in that precise moment we should have known that Sony Computer Ent. did not simply have any idea of what to do: no analysis, tons of superficiality. And while Microsoft and Nintendo were recruiting the greatest world designers in order to have a decent console to put in our living room, a design that WE could appreciate (how stupid they were...uh?), Sony Computer Ent. was creating the tentative of a (very) fat PS2 and a joypad which could have easily been the nightmare of every ergonomics expert. While Microsoft and Nintendo were trying to explain us that the creation of a videogame involves time, study and a little bit of luck, Sony Computer Ent. was officiating as a pontiff on what its PlayStation 3 could do. While Microsoft and Nintendo were crossing their fingers hoping that the millions of dollars spent in their logos elaboration, Sony Computer Ent. was just opening a Word sheet (clearly using OpenOffice), writing "PlayStation 3", applying "Spiderman" font, eventually waving their new logo all around the World.
And we, delighted, were saying: "Ohh..."
We should have suspected it as soon as Sony Computer Ent. presented its new joypad: uninteresting as well as old, with what? A sort of motion sensor, so that we will able not only to play pushing buttons, but also rotating the joypad. And while Nintendo was lifting its hand asking the permission to speak, Sony Computer Ent. was reaffirming that "the idea was ours! In fact, we've here one demo (1!!?!, r.n.) that uses the joypad new feature." (Ken Kuturagi, E3 2006): and what a feature! A gyroscope! A so well-known and standard technology that is the cornerstone of every space mission since tens of years (as you probably know, compasses are useless in space, r.n.).
And we, delighted, were saying: "Ohh..."
We should have suspected it as soon as Sony Computer Ent. retracted its own previously released PS3 specs. Our poor PS3 won't have a core 4GHz processor, it won't have 8 SPEs 'cause one will be for backup purpose, one will probably be burnt (as we will see in a few minutes) and 2-3-4-5, can't remember, are meant for the dashboard and core functionalities. And while Microsoft was coughing fit miming a dashboard and the LIVE service, Sony Computer Ent. was confirming that the dashboard was their original idea, developed on a new concept (equal to PSP dashboard), and that LIVE was not a good service, that PS2 network was even better and that there is no need for a centralised online service. While Nintendo, bowing, was trying to explain what the Wii revolution was, and Microsoft was gently pointing out that Xbox 360 was already "on the shelves", Sony Computer Ent. decided not to show almost anything at E3 2006 and not to show anything at all at GC 2006, all in order to "shoot all our bullets" during the Tokyo Game Show.
And we, delighted, were saying: "Ohh..."
We should have suspected it as soon as Peter Moore winked at Nintendo Wii, as soon as PS3 started losing a barrage of exclusive games: Final Fantasy XI, Full Auto II, Alan Wake, GTA IV, PES6, FIFA 07, Assassin's Creed. As soon as Kojima stated that Metal Gear Solid 4 could have been developed, with no problems, also for Xbox 360 and, I can add, also for Wii, because Hideo is the last genius remained in the videogame world. And while Microsoft and Nintendo dared to apologise with US for their delays (game delays for Microsoft and news lack for Nintendo), Sony Computer Ent. declared that "the first real worldwide launch will be done only by us: with PS3. A launch without all the Xbox 360 shortage problems" (as always, Ken Kuturagi, E3 2006)
And we, delighted, were saying: "Ohh..."
We should have suspected it as soon as delays were always due to Blue-Ray: no-one has been able to invade all world markets with either a HD-DVD player or a Blue-Ray one, no-one! But Blue-Ray is important, said Sony Computer Ent., it contains...more, it allows 1080p! And while Microsoft and Nintendo were crestfallen, trying to explain that Blue-Ray was a daring, premature and no-advantage attempt, Sony Computer Ent. decided to install a BR 2x player instead of the original one (1x) which would not have been able to reproduce movies, to develop 720p games and to remove from the top-600 Euros-bundle the useless (!?!, r.n.) HDMI cable.
And we, delighted, were saying: "Ohh..."
Today, September the 6th 2006, Sony Computer Ent. has announced, without any previous rumour, that PS3 won't be released in Europe, in Africa, in Russia, in Mars and in that poor declassed no-more-a-planet called Pluto. At least not in 2006. USA and Japan are safe! However, hearing at official announcements, delays problems are still due to the damned Blue-Ray, precisely it is due to the lack of "key"-diodes, and this will still invalidate the distribution, even with our-European sacrifice: USA will "see" 400k consoles, while Japan only 100k. Could this disaster have been so difficult to predict? How is it possible that Sony Computer Ent. became aware of this all only yesterday? No! Probably not only it has lied to us with its politics of postponing every 4 months PS3 release date, but also, as some specialised web-sites report, it has lied to us on its capability of producing the "Cells" at a good rate. I fact, it seems that 9 Cells, out of 10 produced, have less that 7 SPE working!
But that's all! Let's stop saying "Ohh..." and, on the other hand, allow me to give you a suggestion: when the 31st of March the PS3 will be released, do not look at it, do not buy it, do not regret it. The second-day release PS3 will be yours, and Ken, Kaz and Phil will be satisfied: but at least their blood has run cold, at least they will think about it! Because even if it's true that PS3 will be a beautiful console that "will last 10 years" (ok, I'll keep note of it, r.n.), WE are the customers.
And WE have to learn to say: Stop it!
Stop it Microsoft! Stop hiding your aces, stop wanting to have an exclusive game released contemporarily to PS3! There is no need for it, no more! Let the PS3 be the challenger: come on, Sony Computer Ent., what do you prefer for your PS3 European release after Gears of War? Mass Effect? Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey? Fable 2? Or maybe we can go straight to Halo 3...?!?
Stop it Nintendo! Stop thinking to be a "for few" console! Stop hiding your head under the sand: let the Zeldas and the Resident Evils be released, let new IPs (Intellectual Properties, r.n.) use your Wii remote! Stop apologising for the name "Wii": it's the coolest in the next-generation, you should not be ashamed of it! Nintendo, remember, your name means "video-game"!
Stop it Sony! Stop using Ken, Kaz and Phil to sustain your ridiculous thesis ("we confirm the estimate of 6 millions consoles at March 2007"). Stop treating us as if we didn't help you in all these years, stop not minding PES sales in Europe, stop thinking there are differences in the world! Stop creating fanaticism where we want ONLY CULTURE!
I'm sorry Sony Computer Entertainment, I'm really sorry: I loved to call you Sony.
We wish you a merry Christmas Sony