pull a sony

to surround your product in a hurricane of hyperbolic and possibly false claims that contradict actual product experience, as a form of offensive damage control and pr. the hope that one can spin shortcomings and failures so actively and so frequently that your manic bl-ster overtakes negative opinion/experience in the public awareness. attempts to change received wisdom to portray the products failures as benefits and the wave of the future, and compet-tors advantages as disadvantages, old fashioned and possibly broken.
“you see that news about removed european ps3 backwards compatibility?”
“yeah, and then they pulled a sony and said old games were the past and ps3 games were the future.”

“man, i wish the ps3 had rumble. the wii manages it with way better motion sensing to boot.”
“me too, but you saw them pull that sony and say rumble was a last generation feature.”

“wow, i’ve been in town all day and there are ps3’s sitting around everywhere – n-body’s buying them at all!”
“tell me about it – but every day now they pull a sony and tell us demand is unprecedented. can’t say i’d noticed!”

“d-mn – i bought a cd last week and it installed a bunch of crud on my computer. i read on the internet i can’t remove it. now my mp3’s are all screwed up and everything is slow.”
“oh yeah – you got hit by that sony rootkit. they think everyone’s a pirate. but they pulled a sony and said since most people don’t know what a rootkit is, it’s their right to install one on everyone’s computers to protect the music industry. don’t you feel better now?”

“jesus! my laptop battery just exploded! i lost all my data.”
“sucks to be you pal. sony batteries are exploding everywhere, they’re recalling them. but not to worry; they said it was just a challenge to make better batteries that would show the sony spirit. how’s that for pulling a sony?”
to have a great product and do everything to make it fail – by having horrible pr, not meeting promised schedules, overhyping, and last-minute changes that cripple the product.
the company just might hit their projected november launch date after all. of course, they could always pull a sony and blame increased demand for some unforeseen delays.
to attempt to avert piracy by putting software cds, only to find out later that the software opens the computer up to hackers.
look what they’ve done. their mistake has set back cd protection by years. everyone will be afraid to pull a sony now.