An apologist is someone who will excuse the most egregious behaviour of a given party due to their loyalty to that party or brand. It could reasonably be stated that anyone who continues to endorse Sony Computer Entertainment after their staggering lack of security foresight, and the theft of a lot of personal data, is at best an apologist and at worst suffering from Stockholm syndrome.
Speculation is now rampant that this debacle will affect Sony’s sales numbers for the PS3 in the coming quarter, and will shift the balance of power back to the Xbox 360, negating Sony’s gain in momentum over the last two years. While I can’t begin to speculate on what future users will do, I can only reflect on my own situation: my PS3 still plays games.
I’m disappointed with Sony, but I’m not pulling the lever and bailing out now. Three generations of consoles, a library of games that takes up the better part of an Ikea bookcase, and countless hours of fun are still tangible realities for me. While my privacy has been violated, Sony has the opportunity to make good before this debacle is over. Whether they perceive this issue to be sufficiently serious remains to be seen.
In the meantime I’m going to keep playing my PlayStation 3 games. I’ll log back into PSN (when I can) and I think my credit card info will be safe with this once-bitten-twice-shy provider. Will I switch my primary platform preference? Perhaps. I’ll wait until Sony’s cards are on the table to make that call.
