Sony's PlayStation unit has had a bad year. Last November, Sony launched their Playstation3 video game console. Depending on the model you chose, it would run either $499 or $599 -- that includes the console, one game controller and zero games. The only half-way decent game at launch was a first-person shooter called "Resistance: Fall of Man."

Sony had the bad luck of having Nintendo launch their oddly named new console, the Wii, just two days after the PS3 came out. The Wii retails for a mere $249 and comes with a game.

Sony's biggest problem has been one of severe loghorrea. Their executives have made ridiculous statements like "the next-gen doesn't start until we say it starts" -- an attack on Microsoft's Xbox 360 which launched a year before the PS3. [Disclaimer: I own a 360.] They took the rumble feature out of their controllers and replaced it with motion sensitivity claiming that it wasn't technologically possible to do both. Of course, Immersion was suing Sony at the time over patent infringement for rumble functionality (Immersion had sued Microsoft too, but Microsoft settled) and Sony ludicrously denied that the removal of rumble had anything to do with the lawsuit. Immersion embarrassed Sony a few weeks later when they announced that they had come up with three ways to do both rumble and motion sensitivity. [Coincidentally, Sony and Immersion settled yesterday.]

Sony's PS2 was so successful that they got cocky. That led to arrogance and stupidity that have given Sony a black eye in the gaming community -- even among those who are fans of their products.

In the most recent edition of Electronic Gaming Monthly the president and CEO of Sony's North American unit, Jack Tretton, made the following statement: "If you can find a PS3 anywhere in North America that's been on the shelves for more than five minutes, I'll give you $1,200 bucks for it." This statement was made in early January 2007, but even then, it wasn't that difficult to find a PS3 on the shelves. The statement continues to get chuckles when you see this sort of thing in stores:

That photo was taken by yours truly at Fry's Electronics in San Marcos, Calif. yesterday. For comparison, there were about a dozen Xbox 360s on display a few feet away and there wasn't a Wii to be found anywhere in the store.

And the silly spin continues. On Monday, Sony exec Phil Harrison made the following statement to Gamedaily:

BIZ: That actually leads into my next question, because a lot of the analysts have been making a big deal out of the fact that retailers seem to continue to sell out of the Wii while PS3s are found in stock at more stores. What do you make of that?

PH: I think you should talk to the people who are running those stores. Talk to the people who run GameStop, talk to the people who run BestBuy, and they'll tell you that the demand is unprecedented and that they give us kudos for managing to keep a very sophisticated supply chain moving. What our competitors are doing I can't speak to but I know we are achieving our goals of keeping the market supplied and working closely with retailers to make sure they get informed about when supplies are coming in so that they can match their internal and external communications to store managers and consumers about when to buy a PS3. If that means that for Wednesday through Friday there were a few machines on a shelf in a store in Milwaukee, great!

Well, as I said, my picture was taken on a Tuesday and there are at least 42 PS3s in that photo.

However, all of this is just little bits of stupidity. Today, Sony really stepped in it when they, for a few short hours blackballed gaming site Kotaku.

Kotaku got a leak that Sony was planning the rollout of some new features for the PS3 at the Game Developer's Conference next week. Sony refused to confirm or deny it, but instead asked them not to run the story -- yet. That sort of thing sets any journalist's alarm bells ringing and so they ran with it.

Sony then sent this missive:

Brian, This is an email I was really hoping I would never have to write, but it is what it is. When I came on board here at Sony, I made every effort to be as inclusive as possible to media and the blogging community in an effort to improve previously damaged relationships. This included getting people access to executives, opening our events to more individuals and personally responding as quickly as possible to inquiries. This was done in good faith with the thought that the people I was working with would operate with the same integrity and courtesy I think I demonstrated when I was a reporter. Basically, I went out on a limb for a lot of people -- people SCEA PR and SCEA management had written off. I caught a lot of flack [sic] for it from folks, but I felt strongly it was the right thing to do.

I am very disappointed that after trying to work with you as closely as possible and provide you and your team with access and information, you chose to report on this rumor.... I can't defend outlets that can't work cooperatively with us.

So, it is for this reason, that we will be canceling all further interviews for Kotaku staff at GDC and will be dis-inviting you to our media event next Tuesday. Until we can find a way to work better together, information provided to your site will only be that found in the public forum.

Again, I take absolutely no joy in sending you this note, but given the situation you have put me into, I have no choice.

Dave Karraker
Sr. Director, Corporate Communications
Sony Computer Entertainment America

As of now, this little spat has been resolved with Sony backing down.

However, I should have Dave Karraker's job. Why? Because the man is foolish. [And by saying that, I'm not going to get the Sony PR job.] This letter should be Exhibit A in what not to do in every PR class at every university in the world.

As a PR flack about the best you can do when presented with the situation Karraker was is to just refuse to comment. You say nothing, the story is a little blip. It may get some people interested or excited, and it's probably not what you wanted, but that's the way you deal with it. Instead, Karraker attempted to use his meager PR powers to squash Kotaku. Big mistake. Why? Because it makes Sony look bad, really bad. It also lends all sorts of credence to a story that Sony didn't want a lot of people paying attention to anyway.

Sony's bad press has been self-inflicted -- and they just can't seem to stop themselves from doing it again and again and again.