What were you (Sony) thinking?

[smkranz]

I am neither an animal rights nut, nor one to ban violent video games (I suppose...though sometimes I wonder). But what the hell is going on with this company?

http://tinyurl.com/2gk7t2

Edited April 30, 2007 by smkranz

[Strungup]

I am neither an animal rights nut, nor one to ban violent video games (I suppose...though sometimes I wonder). But what the hell is going on with this company?

http://tinyurl.com/2gk7t2

That officially ends my love affair with Sony , I never knew about that , that is disgusting. Thx for posting this article .

They used to be cool , ..... seems like such a long time ago .

[bobt]

absolutely sickening, no redeeming qualities whatsoever, don't see a way out of that one.

Bob

[Strungup]

They also have this posted on CNET now , just checked , UNBELeiVEable

This is the end of a great many things for SONY , ....The Dignity , I think left a loooong Time ago

http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9714156-7...ag=2547-1_3-0-5

Edited May 1, 2007 by Guitarfxr

[sector001]

they figure if they start some controversy, it'll make their sales go up........

[ZosoIV]

Absolutely disgusting. With that unfortunate goat Sony has also sacrificed their remaining shreds of dignity (though that's not saying much, really).

[Strungup]

And of course Sony in Japanese fashion will deny any knowledge of afformentioned incident , "AHHHH ,It was the Caterers responsabilty"

But It Is SONY who made a Game so Violent that it would inspire such thinking , There is no way out of this one for me . This isnt the Sony who's products Changed the consumer landscape and actually made Cool things.

The Boards here have been alive with "Is THIS the end of the MD?" talking about one gadjet after another , I know I contributed my share to the fray .

THIS ,....This corperate mentality , this Brazen groping for the pockets of anyone willing to pay for such dribble and Refuse ........THIS ....is the end of MD .

[atrain]

don't think it's that shocking. in very poor taste sure but not much beyond serving roasted goat. it was all tricked up, the offal precooked then placed inside the carcass.

tacky.

[Strungup]

don't think it's that shocking. in very poor taste sure but not much beyond serving roasted goat. it was all tricked up, the offal precooked then placed inside the carcass.

tacky.

Then I think your a sick individual .Blood of the animal clearly visible an the hands of those there , The neck hanging open by sinew , and people enjoying themselves by invading a raw carcass, for a game .

I have hunted , and eaten from the field , But I will only kill what I know I am going to eat , It will be properly bled , and packaged before anyone would see it . The idea that Life is Sacred is obviously foreign to you . And that this is what we have as a species succumbed to for entertainment .

But then again , nothing is Sacred anymore is it.

[smkranz]

Okay, I think it's indeed an outrageous marketing strategy, gruesome & gratuitous, completely unjustified. BUT are you really going to blame the whole Sony institution for it?

How recklessly independent were the local promoters ?!

It shows how things can get out of hand & how sadly line of command & responsibility has failed. Sony should have known what they were letting happen.

That it made its way into the Playstation magazine is the clear give-away that someone other than local promoters thought this one up.

[pata2001]

OMG, c'mon. I'm not a Sony fanboy, but this is a promotional campaign for God of War 2. So Sony "butchered" a goat to sell video games. Well, humans "butchered" many animals to stay alive and then play video games, so what's the difference? I've seen pigs, cows, (and their respective heads) etc on a grilling machine at weddings and ceremonies, yet nobody is complaining about that. What should be criticized is that Sony could have saved up the money and trouble, and put their efforts in securing exclusive games for the PS3 instead of doing silly promotional stuff like this.

Edited May 1, 2007 by pata2001

[boojum]

I am not a prig, but how many righteous folks wept over their hamburger before they ate and walked home wearing leather shoes. The crime was not the killing of the goat. It was that people were enjoying the result. Well, tasteless yes; heinous no. YMMV Those guys in marketing are jerks. Is this news??

Cheers

[King Ghidora]

I have completely lost all respect for Sony after this. I won't be buying any more of their products which is a big change for me. I don't care if their products are better or not. This isn't the first company I have boycotted and it probably won't be the last. Once I decide to abandon doing business with a company it's over.

I have to bring up the history of the Japanese people on this one. Their culture has remained brutal in many ways after the end of WWII. During that war their people did some monstorous things not just to goats but to people. I see this as a throwback to that mentality. Check out the history of the Bataan Death March. The Japanese have been some of the most brutal people on earth at times. It's become common to completely ignore Japan's role in starting WWII in their culture today. They blame everything on the USA which is pure BS. They cry about the nuclear attacks but forget Pearl Harbor. They blame Pearl Harbor on the US putting trade sanctions on Japan but forget to mention that was done because of the Rape Of Nanking which was another horrific example of Japanese cruelty and total disrespect for life.

There has remained a culture among certain Japanese people that admires the old ways and continues to preach Japanese superiority and glorifies their bloody military history. Even in this country we have glorified the Samurai which was the inspiration for all of the Japanese attrocities in WWII. I don't understand how our culture can make heroes of such a brutal icon. We might as well be making heroes of mass murderers. But then I guess we do that too.

Japan itself has taken a HUGE step backward with this IMO. It's their culture that makes such things ok IMO. They have shown that they are just as bloodthirsty as they were in the past and that is a horrible past to say the least. I am not a racist or a Xenophobe but I recognize evil when I see it. And this is nothing but old fashioned evil. Western culture has embraced the bloodlust too especially in the form of some video games. I am not one to harp on cleaning up video games but there must be a point where enough is too much. I think we have passed that point and the Japanese have been feeding it to us all along. Shame on both our cultures.

[Richard]

First of all, I think all of these people getting on their high horse over something that was nothing more than a publicty stunt is completely over the top. Admittedly it was a publicty stunt that may seem in bad taste, but I think this whole discussion is no more than a storm in a teacup.

Secondly regarding the the last post I think what you (King Ghidora) wrote has absoutely nothing to do with the question at hand so I suggest you tone down the exaggerated language and step down from soap box for a moment.

[Strungup]

First of all, I think all of these people getting on their high horse over something that was nothing more than a publicty stunt is completely over the top. Admittedly it was a publicty stunt that may seem in bad taste, but I think this whole discussion is no more than a storm in a teacup.

Secondly regarding the the last post I think what you (King Ghidora) wrote has absoutely nothing to do with the question at hand so I suggest you tone down the exaggerated language and step down from soap box for a moment.

Rich I live in Japan and have a little better perspective of the two faced nature of certain aspects of Japan and Japanese Business.

First off Sony will deny knowing anything ,( because they would lose face ) but the truth is nobody does ANYTHING for or with Sony , without their absolute knowledge of what is going on , If you have never been involved in negotiations with a Japanese business you just wouldnt understand . Every single detail is triplecated , annotated, stipulated, castigated upon untill there is nothing left of it . Sony knew exactly what was going on . There is no question of it.

[Strungup]

BUT we should not put responsibility on Japanese culture specifically. It all has to do with encouraging primal instincts in the consumer. Because it sells. THAT'S what it's about. Making profit. That spirit is definitely not specific to the Japanese. It's what differentiates ruthless individualists from those who favor the interest of the most, addressing to them with reason, convincing & not seducing. That's a lot more work, alas, & quite some prefer easy ways.

I will agree with that Wiz , I know a lot of Japanese people , and Like Japan exept for a few things that REALLY stick out like a sore thumb . This is a Society that thinks of itself as Elegant and Sophisticated , yet treats its women as possesions not people.

I have seen some very interesting things here , IE ... stand in the train station long enough you will see and old woman or old man fall down, trip on the stairs , etc. and actually hurt themselves ......and noone will stop to help him/her...........but if you make a single step towards that person to help , then they will push you out of the way to get to him/her

If however it is a foreigner who falls , there will be ten people there immediately regardless as to there being injury or not.

You would have to live here awhile to see all of the stuff I speak of , but this is what happens EVERYDAY .

there are some messed up Ideas in the culture. The first Idea is that they ARE Cultured, .....They have History , but being Cultured is a different thing altogether . They do NOT understand the world around them . The image of the world around them is a Hollywood image , not one of reality.( I am speaking about the populace as a whole,this holds true among almost ALL Native Japanese people ) Come to Harajuku sometime to watch the Elvis groups , or the Harajuku girls , everything here is a fantasy .....just google Harajuku, in Images, see what you get

[King Ghidora]

First of all, I think all of these people getting on their high horse over something that was nothing more than a publicty stunt is completely over the top. Admittedly it was a publicty stunt that may seem in bad taste, but I think this whole discussion is no more than a storm in a teacup.

Secondly regarding the the last post I think what you (King Ghidora) wrote has absoutely nothing to do with the question at hand so I suggest you tone down the exaggerated language and step down from soap box for a moment.

There was nothing "exaggerated" in my post. I happen to be a bona fide expert on WWII and the Japanese culture that led up to that war. Japan is a nation still stuck in the past in some certain circles. And when I see them even remotely assume the role that propelled them to their heinous actions I feel obligated to point it out. They certainly do so in regards to everything about our western culture.

You can say it was just a publicity stunt if you like but the whole idea of anyone's culture sinking to that level scares me. We aren't that far removed from a time when barbaric excess was the norm. Of course your own country was ground zero for a part of that excess but apparently you think that's a distant memory. The new totalatarian movement of Europe scares me worse than Hitler did. But fortunately much of Europe has awoken from their insane slumber. France and Germany both have elected people who oppose PC thinking. Much of your own culture has moved to the island possessions because you can't live with the Muslims you embraced with open arms. Sounds like a great place to live.

If you don't want such things discussed on this board that's fine. I'll go find a board that isn't afraid of the truth. But I'll put my knowledge of historical Japanese culture up against anyone you can find. My comments were NOT exaggerated. If anything I left out the gory details If you insist on defining how every subject should be discussed I think I'll just move on to where political correctness doesn't resemble censorship so much. I've been helped a great deal on this board and I've spent a lot of time helping others but I'll not have some blowhard moderator tell me what's exaggerated when that moderator is completely out of his league concerning this issue. I was a history major in college sir and I spent a great deal of time studying WWII. It would be almost impossible to exaggerate what happened at Nanking and Bataan. And who are you to decide what's relevant discussion matter anyway? Just another moderator masquerading as the PC Napoleon is my guess. How dare you assume you can reject anyone's thinking when you yourself are so obviously dreadfully uninformed. Since you think you can off hand declare my post irrelevant to the conversation how about you describe what happened at Nanking so we all know you have the foundation to make such a declartion. I'd die of shock if you could even give a basic description of what happened there without looking it up first.

Censorship and insults from the moderators is positive proof that it's time to abandone this little cracker box of a web site. You could have asked politely but instead you attempted to glorify your own opinion as far more important that that of anyone else. Political correctness ruined your country. Now you want to export it? How do you like living in a country where the crime rate is probably the highest in Europe because of your heroin addict problems and the Islamic contingent murders anyone who disagrees with them? Yeah that political correctness stuff really worked out well for you. Ha. Your country will be under Sharia law within a decade and your people don't have the gumption to stop it. Makes me want to move to the Netherlands and laugh at you for a pastime. You insulted the wrong person sir. I can embarass you from dawn to dusk on an issue like this. You feel free to support that "anything goes" mentality your country has embraced for so long and the rest of the world will watch the native culture of the lowlands get swept away like a hurricane over a dike.

If you don't think bloodlust is relevant to this conversation then you must be really spending too much time in those Amsterdan coffee shops. It isn't just Japan that is at fault. The west has embraced the games they produce in Japan. At some point enough becomes enough and when they start promoting what was a fantasy game with real dead creatures then something is badly wrong. I pointed out that Japan has a history of not respecting life in the not so distant past. Ooohh that was so out of touch with the issue. It's exactly the issue IMO. Just like it's exactly the issue that people in the west and in the USA in particular have glorified violence for too long. Starting with Jesse James and Billy the Kid the US has looked at violence as a good thing even when it's done by completely evil people. I see Hollywood types almost worshipping mafia figures. Sooner or later this will all come around to bite us on the ass and those who stick their heads in the sand and ignore the problem (and even go as far as demand that others do the same and censor them if they don't) will have blood on their hands too IMO. How much did western bloodlust affect Tim McVey? We know that video games inspired the Columbine killers. We know those video games almost exclusively come from Japan. It's time we recognized the problems but you belittle those who think it's important. Smooth move there Dutch Boy.

[Richard]

I wasn't expecting such a outrageous (if not hilarious) response to this. I really can't fathom what you think WWII history has to do with Sony Europe cutting up a goat in the name of publicity.

Even though I am not Dutch myself you obviously haven't done your research and are just using this thread as an excuse to spout your own brand of "expert opinion".

So far in a couple of responses, as far I can see you have made sweeping generalizations against pretty much everyone from the Japanese, "the islamic contingent" as you call it, to most of Western Europe.

Anyone who feels the need to declare themselves "a bone fide expert" in something is rarely anything of the kind.

I'll leave your rant intact so everyone can enjoy it, but I'll close the thread for now as this is about as silly as it can get.