Well Sony's been stuck in the past for years, always playing catch up with their competitors. Clearly the problem is that Sony isn't innovating enough or that their managers aren't willing to move on. Considering Sony spend $5bn+ on R&D every year, I think either they are wasting their money or its a problem with their employees and managers. 

I have edited the OP a bit. Hopefully its "better" now.

why are you "concerned" with someone else's money?

Don't you dare to not answer this before anything else related to my post if you choose to quote me... and don't give that crap about "i saw in a crystal ball that this starts a new trend"

if this turns Sony into the great evil that already is pictured in your mind, won't this be good to you. you'll get to say, "see people, i was right, $ONY is pure evil, and now that is destroyed, i can take my tinfoil hat... hurray for me"
embrace it dude...

There is the possibility that it will set a precedent but currently I'm not worried, ironically publishers are already asking for people's money before games are released anyway via pre orders, other devs are asking for money before the full release of a game via early access. The taking of money before delivering a product has become standard in the games industry a long time ago.

I never said they would turn evil. I simply said this was becoming a bad trend (in my opinion) in the gaming industry. And no, I'm not concerned about someone elses money. I'm concerned these projects will all just be cash grabs, or that they'll be canceled. People can do whatever they please with their money.

Some games, sure. Some projects simply won't find business investors so the way to do it is through crowdfunding. It's not about taking the risk while the company gets the profit because they won't profit unless after the crowdfunding the game goes on to sell a lot to non-backers, which would be possible but rare.

There are two sides to it in the end though, one bad and one good. Bad is creating a precedent that makes the companies shove too many things to crowdfunding and not funding anything that isn't 100% safe. Good is that a "type" of product that first requires crowdfunding to find success or a market can then go on to actually expand through proper funding (whether it's the same company or a different one looking to copy the formula), exactly because that particular title was very successful. What actually happens depends on a lot of things, including the success of the projects and the mentality of the corporate heads

I sure as hell would help fund some dead IPs I love and that the owners are clearly unwilling to fund due to their relative failure.

You should also be concerned that this will extend into the movies as well.  I mean just think about how expensive movies are nowadays.  I bet they will use crowdfunding where we go into a new movie and slide in coins and dollars into the movie theater seats.  Only until a certain amount of money is reached in the movie theater will the movie begin to play.  Then the movie will cut short (only about 30 min) and say in big bold letters on the screen "fund us more money to see the rest of the movie".

Enough of this nonsense.  Go educate yourself by reading Tamron's wonderful post about the subject found here:

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=7406204

and please go educate yourself about Shenmue III funding found here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dL198n2d0o

/End Thread and Lock

I believe you're oversimplifying how easy being truly innovative is, especially in todays market where so much already exists. Consumers are just not that easy to read, that's why the majority of new products simply fail. Sure getting some new young people, to get some fresh perspectives, can help but it's most certainly not a guarantee for success. I mean I'm not that plugged into the whole consumer electronics industry but when did the last truly big innovation come out of one of the big players in that industry? As far as I see it's way more about incremental improvements instead of true innovation in that field.

Yes, but there needs to be maximum transparency when doing so. The individuals giving the money can decide for themselves whether it's all right or not.

This has nothing to do with the Sony Japan tech employee funding? Nothing to do with SCE or PlayStation.

As to the original question, I would take it on a case by case basis.

I prefer the Project Cars approach where in addition to your backer benefits, you get your money back. Providing the game is profitable of course.