While the Ocean marketing debacle was clearly bad publicity for Ocean, I'd like to ask HN to consider what the effect was for N-Control - maker of the Avenger game controller. How many of you even knew what the Avenger game controller was before the Ocean blowup? Now, thanks to the enthusiastic words of Dave-the-excited-customer, we know not only what the Avenger is, but how thrilled Dave was to get two, how it will help disabled students all over the world, and that thousands of units have just arrived, presumably ready for your purchase.
I'm not literally suggesting that the Ocean fail was intentional, but consider the world where it was... In that world, I'd suggest the "fake fail" was executed PERFECTLY. The victim was outspokenly positive about the product, the fall-guy was disposable, and the whole story went viral. Everyone hates Ocean, feels a little bad for N-Control, and now knows about the Avenger.
Thoughts?
The fact is, in gaming customers will take a lot of abuse, it is evident in the email exchange where the customer Dave I think his name was does not cancel his order. So the risk of driving away customers that want this product is probably small, given that the recipient of the abuse still wanted the merchandise. Where in most other industries a customer would say you know what cancel my order. Sony's antics are further proof that some gamers have a high threshold for abuse. So given that there is a high upside for publicity with a low downside of canceled orders over the fiasco. Given that it is a third party, they can dispose of them and claim that they are innocent. I am not saying this is what happened but it cannot be ruled out.