What gripes do you have Sony Japan?
QC of their products. Dead consoles, my most recent experience with a new Sony console had a dead AV cable out of the box brand new(Christmas gift for one of my kids). I've also had multiple PSXs die on me. My ColecoVision still works for a bit of comparison on that front. Their controllers are shoddy also, at least for the PSX, although that wouldn't be a major issue if not for the rest of the console crapping out along with it.
TVs- although I haven't purchased a Sony TV in quite a while, one of my buddies picked up a new 32" Wega in the summer of '01, it's already dead. Sony, of course, wouldn't do a thing about it to fix it, it lasted a whole couple of months beyond the warranty. He brought the TV in to a repair shop and they told him it was going to run ~$800 to fix it, and that it was quite common with Sony's
Optical drives- Besides all of the problems with their consoles, I've also replaced several dead Sony optical drives out of PCs. I wouldn't consider this a major issue except for the age of them. Most of the units I've replaced were less then three years old.
VCRs- Again, frequently crapping out long before comparable offerings. Eating tapes, heads shot(require constant cleaning, even the ones with 'self cleaning heads'), and eventually failure regularly within a few years.
PCs- Don't have a lot of experience with them, but the one I've had to work on(well, I do it for people I know for free) for one of my friends had a shot power supply. This was a Vaio that had no upgrades at all and was a P3 GHZ PC- it wasn't that old. Also a lousy Win install with far too many TSRs at boot but that is normal for OEM boxes(just another gripe).
Surround sound system- Brand new DD/DTS setup I was hooking up for someone has the front right speaker channel shot out of the box under any Surround mode(it worked fine on the stereo modes however). This wasn't a real high end unit, cost the guy ~$600 IIRC, but at least it happened under warranty and he was able to return it and pick up another brand.
These are only relatively recent experiences I've had with Sony. In my younger days I used to buy Sony nearly exclusively until their quality started to tank coinciding with their rise in prices(relative to the competition). Sony charges a premium price and their durability has been worse then Matsushita's crap GoldStar brand(which tends to cost ~1/2 to 1/3 of comparable Sony offerings). Panasonic, Toshiba, Mitsubishi, JVC, ProScan, I've not had any major problems with components from any of these companies that were three years old or less while I expect, and have been batting pretty near 100% on my expectations, Sony products to have some sort of major failure within that time frame.
With all of that said, I think SCEA has done an extremely good job with their QC. I have respect for their ability, even if I don't for their counterparts across the Pacific.
No one has done something like Xbox Live before
You mean, besides Sega's multiple consoles they had on networks?
