Do you have any proof of that? I'm a little over 30 and until recently (with DRM and rootkits), I haven't had any beefs with Sony whatsoever. People younger than me have even less of a reason to dislike the company.

Sony products are very popular in America. Some of their lines, such as computers, may not be as popular as they are in Europe, but I would blame that on the huge number of available computer options available to Americans by companies based in America (Apple, Dell, HP, etc.) that offer either comparable products to Sony (Apple) or discount rigs far cheaper than Sony (HP, Dell).

I can name a handful of Sony products that have been wildly popular in America over the past 20 years - Playstation, Walkman, Ericcson phones, etc.

In my experience, most people in America just consider Sony another electronics company and if they do have an opinion about the company, it's one of high quality electronics, not bias against them for buying a movie studio two decades ago.

I know some relatives and friends who remember all of that (I was about 7 when it happened). Maybe it's more of a case of general xenophobia with them.

 I'm going to say your full of it... as I don't know anyone who remembers anything like that.  My dad is like the major "buy USA" guy too... since he works for an auto company.

Every country in the world supports protectionism.  Lesser developed countries like South Korea (at one time anyway) successfully used protectionism to build their auto industry so that it can now compete on the global market (without protectionism it is highly unlikely that large upstart ventures like this can survive) and developed countries like America are promoting free trade in order to prevent foriegn competitors from developing their own industries that can compete with ours.

Politicians are trying to open up the economies of other countries while trying to protect their own, and this has led to some pretty crazy protectionist laws (non-tariff barriers) such as Germany's purity beer law to protect their beer industry.  I guess what I'm trying to say is that even with the guise of free trade protectionism is alive and well in the global economy and to think otherwise is unrealistic.

I honestly don't know why this is.

1. Abysmal failure rate(Americans don't care, Sony would have been chewed up if vice versa) That is why it is called the 360.... to the repair center and back.
2. Pay to play online(P2P, lolz) and those that don't are basically harassed to do so.
3. It's empowering to American youth to be able to have a place to use abusive and racial language normally frowned upon in the public eye.
4. Is NOT cheaper when you factor in the add-ons you need to get to what the PS3 has out of the box.

Troll, party of one, your table is ready.

For the very same reasons why the PS2 was preferred over Xbox.

- Cheaper
- More games
- 1 Year head start

Plus, currently is has the more critically acclaimed games available, including many multi-platform titles reviewed higher, with less technical issues. Then throw in Halo and a social network service that has no real competition at the moment.

Americans cant be that patriotic when choosing consoles the Wii is about to take the lead position - i think it may be cost that matters most and the x60 is cheaper than the PS3 (sadly people dont care about much else in most cases).
Games wise 360 has good FPS games and currently the one feature that makes the ps3 games possibly unique (motion sensitive) has been implemented so badly in most games that it's not seen as an advantage at all.
The primary issue is severe lag but this is a software issue since there are exceptions like motorstorm which do it very well and have very little lag.
I think if sony totally eliminated lag with a better driver it would provide a unique incentive for people to play the games on the PS3 instead of xbox360 - currently there is no incentive since it's either not supported and often is done so badly it detracts from the games rather than enhancing them.
Sonys lacklustre implementation of their much touted motion sensing controller deserves all the criticisim it gets.

@ Chrono

I have been on LIVE since 2003 and have never - EVER paid over $30 per year to play online. Only a clueless soul would pay the full $60 per year. I even got a free year from MS this Christmas.

Madskillz    I am clueless    how?