To those of you who are blaming the consumer, saying that they should do some research, etc., the fact the the marketplace has a great number of idiots is the whole point of this conversation.
Yes, there are a lot of people who don't do research and don't understand technology that well. You want to make your product as idiot-proof as possible, because every time you make a consumer feel like an idiot (whether or not they actually are one) they hate you a little more for it. That's bad PR. When these idiots talk about their PS3 to their buddies, they'll throw in qualifiers like, "It sucks that it doesn't play PS2 games though," or "I had to trade in the first one I bought and pay an extra $100 to play my PS2 games, that was BS."
Every time you hassle your consumer by forcing them to trade in a unit that wasn't really what they wanted or needed to be repaired under warranty, their satisfaction level drops. And it does have an impact on sales.
Blame the consumer all you want, but these consumers won't blame themselves. They'll blame Sony.
"The worst part about these reviews is they are [subjective]--and their scores often depend on how drunk you got the media at a Street Fighter event." — Mona Hamilton, Capcom Senior VP of Marketing
*Image indefinitely borrowed from BrainBoxLtd without his consent.
