In what continues to be a major PR setback for Sony, Sony has decided to recall all of their copy protected CDs which include the now infamous rootkit. It’s kind of funny that all by themselves, Sony has managed to add the previously obscure hacker term, "rootkit", to the public lexicon.
This could not have come at a worst time for Sony with respect to promoting the Playstation 3 as Microsoft launches the Xbox 360 next week. Up until now, Sony had been fairly vocal about their next generation console in an attempt to avoid losing mindshare during the 360 launch. But since the rootkit story broke, I haven’t seen anything about the PS 3. There are already rumors that the PS 3 will not launch in the U.S. until fall 2006 at the earliest. As for Microsoft, they get the double bonus because Sony can’t hype the PS 3 during the 360 launch and Microsoft has offered software to remove the Sony rootkit from PCs. Apple gets a double bonus too because the copy protected CDs can’t install the rootkit on Macs and Sony will also have a hard time promoting sometimes iPod competitor PSP with the controversy grabbing the headlines. In short, Sony’s competitors have gotta love this!
I hope that Sony will learn a lesson from this and stop treating their customers like criminals. The real pirates will never be stopped by some rinky dink copy protection. Now Sony faces millions of dollars in costs associated with the recall and the inevitable class action lawsuits. And they have lost a lot of good will as well. I for one will think twice about any future purchases of Sony electronics and I certainly won’t be buying any Sony CDs either.