Sony: A Long Way from the PS9

Joseph Laszlo | July 27, 2006, 12:05 PM

A conversation a few days ago led me to recall the fantastic, mind-boggling 2000 Sony ad that introduced the world to the PS2. Method Studios produced the award winning spot, the premise of which was the unveiling of the PS9, in 2078.

This was visionary stuff, suggesting how much the PS2 would kick butt by asking the viewer to imagine 7 console generations into the future. The spot still gives me goose bumps after all these years--I'm a sucker for a happy, technology-rich, escapist future.

And only a company totally at the top of its game, with complete confidence in what it's delivering, could possibly have pulled it off.

Which sadly underscores how Sony 2000 is decidedly not Sony 2006.

Sony 2006 has been battered by a stream of bad PS3 news ever since the E3 games conference...and along that fine line between complete confidence and blind hubris, these days it feels like Sony's on the wrong side. I like Sony a lot, but I worry that unless things change, gamers increasingly find themselves farther from, not closer to, the PS9.