I spent the morning reading some pretty unflattering blogs about the PS3. We’ve known about the shortcomings with Sony’s half-assed network “plan”, but the inability to use third part universal remotes with blu-ray video playback was news to me. (I wont even touch the inability to network it with a PC for now). A friend on a board asks “How did Sony spend this much time and money and still come up short”?

In a nutshell, I think the answer might boil down to “Japan sucks at the internet”.

I am talking about the internet in a way deeper than just pipes and tubes- though the US certainly has some infrastructure advantages in that department as well. Forgive the cheesiness, but I don’t think they get it in spirit. Not sure whether that leads to or merely combines with corporate arrogance, but it’s creating a perfect storm of crap in this east meets west gaming culture clash.

Just to lay off of Sony for a second, I’ll pick on Capcom. Dead Rising was the subject of a lot of noise in the blog/message board circles due to the tiny, unlegible text on SD televisions. It soon got picked up among the larger gaming sites, and there is no conceivable way the complaints couldn’t have filtered up to the development team. Do they respond to the community and issue some kind of fix (or barring that, at least a half hearted apology). Of course not. And to rub it in, months later they release the Lost Planet multiplayer demo with the exact same problem. It’s almost as if they did it on purpose, as if to say fuck off to the noisy crowds online.

Is there some gene that says you can’t listen to your customers, let alone learn from them? I dunno, but when I see Microsoft listening to developers, and spending time participating in the gaming community with the likes of Major Nelson, I cant help but think the American technology and entertainment communities understand and respect the collaborative and communicative nature of the internet. And I honestly think that, not CPU or GPU is going to be the major factor in this new generation of console warfare.

When the original Xbox launched, cries of “it will fail without Japan” rang loud throughout the internet. It’s funny, how times have changed. Sure, Japan will give us our Zeldas and Final Fantasys, and their arcades no doubt smoke ours, but I am starting to think the Japan thing is turning into more of a liability than an advantage in this new connected era.