Okay, Sony: NOW I'm pissed

To: Sony Megauberconglomerate Assholes
From: A former Sony customer

Okay, you punks. I enjoyed a good snicker when you guys snuck copy-protection rootkit viruses on your music CDs. I was curious enough to see if your Walkman bean could stand against the iPod juggernaut (it couldn't). I mostly tsk'd in disappointment at your hubris-loaded $600 price tag for the PlayStation 3. I even eventually forgave you for backing Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich's ill-conceived insult to Toho's reknown city-stomping monster.

But now you bastards have really pissed me off -- you guys have sued Lik-Sang out of business. That, I will not forgive.

(For the uninitiated, Lik-Sang was one of Hong Kong's premiere exporters of Asian video games, toys, and accessories.)

What did Lik-Sang do to earn your wrath? Why, they had the temerity to pre-sell PlayStation 3 video game consoles to European customers -- folks who simply didn't want to wait until next March to get your shiny new toy, folks who were going to importers like Lik-Sang because you screwed up your pre-launch production and gave European customers the shaft as a result.

And because Lik-Sang was merely filling a void by satisfying the customers you screwed over, you stomped them for it.

The thing is, I'm not even a big customer of Lik-Sang -- most of the stuff I've bought from them were accessories that I couldn't get in the U.S., like a Mario-branded Nintendo DS Lite carrying case or a power adapter that runs on mainland China's power voltage levels. But Lik-Sang were honest brokers, and I appreciated that, and now you've got me angry as a result of your steamrolling tactics. Sure, I could go to other importers like Play-Asia, but you've needlessly squashed a retailer just because they didn't want to enforce your artificial monopoly -- and that cheese me off.

And if you think I'm pissed, just think about how much more pissed off Lik-Sang's legions of die-hard customers -- especially the ones in Europe -- are going to get.

So fuck off, Sony. Don't expect me to buy your products, and do expect me to tell everyone about your heavy-handed tactics and to avoid your stuff whenever possible.

Get slagged,

--R.J.