PSPorn

A mom in Florida recently bought a brand-new PSP for her son... and it included a memory stick filled with porn. (See the story here.) It was all over the news, and many gamers were questioning whether it was a new PSP or a trade-in. With a trade-in, you expect less than 100% like new quality, despite keeping your own games at home in pristine quality - box, manual, the whole shebang. However, I don't know any Wal-Marts that allow you to trade in your PSP. This PSP obviously wasn't new... what does that imply for Sony?

Sony is refurbishing used PSP's and selling them as new. That doesn't sound ammoral at all! It's all about making the money.

I realize times are tough, and the easiest way to make more money is to cut some corners and spend less to make more. Pizza places skimp on toppings. McDonald's raised the price of their double cheeseburger. Why not sell a used video game system for a new price? It's as good as new right? It's like buying a used car. Even one that was taken very good care of is still used. There is wear and tear, and parts that you don't even know you need may fall off. PSP's have very, very small parts. One drop may jar something loose on the inside. It's not sturdy. It's not a DS, where any collision with the ground short of a perfect corner landing will leave it with little more than a scratch. (Yay solid state electronics!) It's a PSP. It's fragile, but it's made for grown-ups that know how to take care of their crap. But when a kid gets his sticky little hands on it, who knows the kind of calamities that may befall it?

Maybe the guy was looking at porn on his boat and dropped it in the lake then had to send it in for a new one. Sony repaired it and reboxed it like new. Then one day, the kid's mom bought it as a 4-month late Christmas present. The kid will be looking at the same porn, and the machine will heat up, and it will act like an incubator, and it will hatch all the shrimp eggs hiding inside it! And the shrimp will crawl into his brain and eat out the back of his eyes! Then where will Sony be? That's right: ULTRA-LAWSUIT 3.0! I can picture it now: Blind kid vs. Sony. Unanimous decision. Yay for blindy!

But maybe I'm blowing this out of proportion. Maybe.