14 DAY TRIAL // Seemingly, Sony "forgot" to mention, prior to European and Australian PS3 launch, that some territories won't have enough broadband to expand the PlayStation Store service. Through this service, PS3 users are able to download and play demos and PlayStation Network games, view trailers for upcoming movies and Blu-Ray movies, game videos (behind the scenes, interviews), ad-on game content all of which are free.
Sony played their cards well in launching the PS3 first and then telling the world that some territories won't be included in the service and quite frankly, there aren't "some" territories but many: Greece (and Greek customers had to pay an extra $50 to just acquire the system), Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovenia, Iceland, Turkey, Croatia, Cyprus and God knows how many others (this is all that I could find).
Speaking to GI.biz Nick Sharples, SCEE director of corporate communications said: "There are more than 102 territories in the region, and each Store has to be made unique for each territory due to different currencies and languages. Stores will reach some territories in due course." After hearing this you'd normally start to relax and say: "well, they aren't jerks after all, they're going to make the service available to everyone in time," but that's not the case.
Continuing with his comments on the matter, Sharples confessed that some countries "won't get a store at all" as broadband penetration would be impossible in territories such as Azerbaijan. SCEE director of corporate communications actually pointed out this very country as an impossible-to-get-PS Store territory: "The PS Store may not be accessible in Azerbaijan, for example," he stated. Nice going there Sony, what do you have prepared for us next, a bomb hidden inside the PS3 console? Real smooth selling strategy too, letting people buy the PS3 to only find out that they can't use one of the console's most advantageous features.
Up until this point, I was a dedicated PlayStation fan, but this will surely affect my decisions concerning Sony hardware in the future and especially concerning the PS3 gaming console.