The Evil Sony Imperialists

I wanted to be wrong about Sony. I knew I wasn't so I went ahead and wrote this piece anyway, before I had all of the data. But I really did have all the data -- I just didn't have any way to know 100% for sure. But now I do.

I heard from Yohan Le Nerriec, the chief architect at Orb and he confirmed my suspicions that I couldn't stream ORB to my normal PSP browser because Sony used closed protocols in their regular browser that ORB and others can't tap into.

The Sony solution for streaming ORB -- something that should work RIGHT AWAY on the PSP anyway is a $600 ad-on known as the PS3. That's right, if you want to stream video from ORB to your PSP, it can be done -- but it requires a $600 ad-on in the middle. You have to use the remote play feature of the PS3 to stream Orb -- and the remote play feature is not currently stable.

It so happens I had the PS3 anyway and it really is a cool gaming console. But I shouldn't need a $600 ad-on to make ORB work.

But Sony is evil like that. If it was simply a stupid business decision made out of stupidity, it wouldn't bother me. But this is how Sony operates. Always deliberately trying to make you pay even MORE for what you already paid for (I already paid $199 for the PSP) and there's no technological reason why the regular browser couldn't stream video except for this. Sony doesn't want you to have THAT much capability in a $200 product. They want you to pay MORE for that feature. $600 more in this case.

Yikes!

On a separate note, I wonder if they let Paris bring her PSP to jail....robert seidman