Clearly, you have never read any iTunes reviews for AppStore games. The amount of bitching over any program that costs more than 99 cents is eye-opening. There appear to be legions of whiny, broke kids using the iPhone (or perhaps more likely, iPod touch) as a game machine.

For a second there, it looked like I was reading a story about the Amiga OS in 2009. Ha ha ha! Silly clock radio.

They did. See http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/04/amazon-does-the-right-thing-on-orwell-mess/

Bezos said âoeOur âsolutionâ(TM) to the problem was stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles. It is wholly self-inflicted, and we deserve the criticism weâ(TM)ve received.â

Then they sent a legit copy of the affected books to everyone, along with a $30 gift certificate.

I think it's safe to assume they will never, ever do anything like this again.

You could load disk images of games you which didn't buy or otherwise have a license to play. That would open Apple to liabilities and lawsuits, and we wouldn't want that, would we?

If these guys are trying to sell a book, this isn't the way to do it. The article really turned me off because of their writing style. Barely relevant references to Karl Marx, Star Trek, Red Dwarf are annoying enough, but inserting them as footnotes is beyond pompous. I suppose I got some pleasure out of the juxtaposition of Loguidice's typically purple prose next to Atari VCS screenshots, though.

Are you sure it's *not* Gamestop's fault? Sony has certainly blundered a lot this year, but EB/GS has turned into a very nasty little retailer lately and this seems consistent with my experience with them.

For example, every time I go into an EB/GS store around lunchtime on a Tuesday (release day for new games), the salesnerd has yet to open his shipment for the day. After he pauses his video game or stops gossiping with his friends, he recommends that I preorder next time.

Give them an interest-free loan on a readily-available item? No thanks!

I walk across the street to Toys R Us and buy it off the shelf, often for $5 less. It's sad when a crappy box store like TRU beats out a specialty shop in terms of service and early availability.

I understand that hardware is always scarce at launch, and the retailers don't make any profits from selling it, but if you're going to sell games, it seems to me you should take an interest in your customer's needs. If I were burned by EB/GS in this way after giving them a pre-order for PS3, I would resolve never to shop there again.