And so it is a bit of a shock to realize that on the video game front Microsoft and Sony are moving in exactly the opposite directions one might expect given their roots. Microsoft, the prototypical PC company, has made the Xbox 360 into a powerful but intuitive, welcoming, people-friendly system. Sony's PlayStation 3, on the other hand, often feels like a brawny but somewhat recalcitrant specialized computer. (Sony is even telling users to wait for future software patches to fix some of the PS3's deficiencies.) The thing is, if people want to use a computer, they'll use a computer.

Through the decades of the Walkman and the Trinitron television, Sony was renowned as the global master of easy-to-use, seamlessly powerful consumer electronics. But recently Sony seems to have lost its way, first in digital music players, in which it ceded the ergonomic high ground to Apple's iPod, and now in home-game consoles. For now Sony's technologists seem to have won out over the people who study fun.

¶ 7:35 PM