A quick rant at Sony

I bought a PSPgo about 3 weeks ago as my old launch PSP-1000 refused to be played unless plugged in, a fatal flaw for a handheld gaming device. Sony decided to try a little experiment with the PSPgo and made it a download only console -a pretty brave step given that it meant rendering useless all those disc based games people have already bought for their old PSPs. That said I commend them for their efforts. Bill Gates has already said that this is likely to be the last generation of consoles that use physical media and it's download and cloud from here on out so I think Sony did a Good Thing. They experimented on a platform that doesn't have magic sales figures (well, compared to the rival DS anyway), and I hope this was a learning exercise so that for the PSP2 they know what they are doing.

Anyway. One of the reasons I bought the PSPgo instead of getting a much cheaper old style PSP was because it came with 10 free games (high initial price point = low sales = PROMOTION!). To get my 10 free games did I:

a) use the code provided in the box

b) enter the unique serial number of my PSPgo into a website that then provided me with a code

c) ring Sony quoting serial numbers etc to be provided my code

d) download a theme off the PSN (Playstation equiv. of App Store) that then triggered a request to Sony that came with the proviso that my free code should arrive by e-mail within 30 (THIRTY) days.

d) obviously otherwise this wouldn't be a rant. I understand that Sony need to ensure they don't give away free games to people who haven't bought a new PSPgo and putting the codes in the box would be a logistical nightmare for those units that have already shipped to retailers. But why not b) or c) Sony? You are a very large company, I am quite sure you have the expertise required to make website b).

More to the point, this information was not forthcoming at the point of sale. There are pedants who live in the forums (and write blogs like this) that point out that there is a full description of the convoluted method and time frame you must endure in the Terms and Conditions.

Dear Sony Computer Entertainment (and pedants),

Have you ever read the T&C?

Ever?

For anything??

No.

It's fine to pull shit like this if you are going to say upfront 'yeah you get 10 free games but you're not going to get them immediately so quit your whining'. But don't hide it in the terms and conditions because all that achieves is filling up forum after forum with people posting 'WEARS MY GAMES, IVE BE WEIGHTING 4 AGES'. I'm also going to have a little Daily Mail moment and say can you imagine waking up on Christmas Day to find that the snow will have melted (please god let the snow melt soon) before you will get to play anything on your very expensive paperweight. THINK OF THE CHILDREN SONY.