[06/01/2008]   Sony once again has become a thorn in my side. They seem to be doing this an awful lot lately. This time it has to do with their inability to support the backwards compatibility that they decided to support before flip-flopping and not supporting it—if that makes sense at all. In any case, the issue this time is that the PS3 has no memory card slot. It's the only current-generation console without one, as both the Xbox 360 and the Wii have memory card slots for the Xbox and GameCube respectively. No, if you wish to transfer your PS2 and PS1 gamesaves, you must spend $20 on a Memory Card Adapter to transfer the data to the harddrive - a task that, in all likelihood, will only ever have to be performed once. $20 for a one time deal that should have been available with the base package. But that's not all! Oh, no.

Too make matters even more interesting, Sony seems to believe that nobody would possibly be using a memory card other than the Sony brand 8mb one. Not a chance. So, of course, third party memory cards with more than 8mb of storage cannot be read by the PS3! What with the massive number of game saves I have, I long ago switched to a 64mb card. However, in order to transfer my data, I had to manually move my save files in two chunks onto my old 8mb card using my PS2 before transferring it to the PS3. So not only did Sony fail to include a feature that, according to every possible sense of logic, should have been available, it also failed to support the third party manufacturers who paid them licensing fees. That's what I call quality user-friendliness.

Bah, enough moaning. I'm happy to announce that, for the first time since I took over Points of View back in August, we officially have a complete, fully trained review crew. With any luck, you can all expect to see a significant growth in review output from now on.

This week in Points of View we have reviews for Final Fantasy IX, My Life as a King, On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, and Baroque.