@mogan: This exactly. It just makes no sense how so many of us outside of the industry can see it for what it is so clearly while the execs making these decisions remain ignorant and/or clueless. Even more aggravating if you think about how many potential games were never made because they were wasting time with stuff destined to fail.

Grew up on controllers, felt great. Added PC gaming when I was about 25, mouse and keyboard felt so foreign I almost gave up. Fast forward several years later and I prefer m/k over controller for pretty much any shooter. Controller is still the way to go for some other genres though.

@olddadgamer: I believe this might be a Japanese thing and possibly certain PAL regions. We see it as "X" from the English alphabet, they see it without a language association. It's just a shape, like the square, triangle and circle buttons.

If it's really just to collect player data for potential improvements to the game, why not make it an opt-in choice? Enough people would do it you still get your data and the game isn't broken for those who want/have to play offline.

@spoochy: I thought it looked just a hair off as well. Something about the upper lip seemed strange. Still very impressive though.

@tbird7586: He's been the Don Mattrick of Sony from day one. He hasn't done that level of damage yet, but a similar output of incompetence and bad decisions.

@Pyrosa: The Truman Show: "What the hell are you talking about? Who are you talking to?!"

@mogan: This is so accurate with regards to almost everything these days. It's very sad and frustrating that more people don't recognize it.

I know I'm cynical, but my initial reaction is this is how they can justify making single player games always online. They know a large contingent of players hate it, but now they can horseshoe it in via this value-added "experience". Maybe it will actually be worthwhile, but I don't have any interest from what I've heard so far.

@LowTechGeek: I wasn't aware, thanks for the info.