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The new Kratos-themed deep red PSP pack goes on sale today, just shy of three months after the highly-regarded rated-M prequel to God of War I and II was released to North America. To say Sony missed the hype wagon on this one is an understatement. Had this been released alongside the game and, incidentally, alongside the DVD debut of Superbad at roughly the same time since this has the UMD version of that movie, I would have considered buying it outright. You see I'm still muddling along just fine with a PSP-1000, and until it reaches out a hand and says "Come with me if you want to live", I just might stick with it. Especially since another fetching PSP entertainment pack headed our way -- the metallic blue one -- is also only going to be bundled with Madden 2009.

Also hitting the market soon is a red PS2, this one for Japan only right now. The color looks similar to the deep red PSP, so why not produce another profit-making version of Sony's last-generation breadwinner?

Lastly we have Qore, the rumored online magazine for all things PlayStation. Qore will be a paid video magazine that will hit the PlayStation Store for the first time this week at three bucks a pop, or you can buy it annually. The logo is red, keeping with today's post theme, and if you glance at the details I really don't understand why they're making people pay for these things. In case they haven't noticed, offering special game downloadables and demos only to subscribers threatens to put them even further back in the race against the content bonanza of the Xbox Live Marketplace. Here's a hint Sony: increase the value of your online service to the broadest possible user group so you can, you know, gain the traction you should have had from day one. Is it even worth giving hints to Sony anymore? Some days I wonder, but at least it's fun to write snarky digs about them because really, I kid because I love.

But no, I won't be subscribing to Qore. I can't see them cutting off anything important offered by the service from the rest of the PSN gaming public. That would be just plain bad marketing. Oh wait, this is Sony again, right?

From Aeropause.