If he's a superstitious man, Kaz Hirai is very probably sitting in a circle of salt right now, surrounded by a small army of lucky cat statues as he nails horse-shoes to every available part of his body while stuffing fistfuls of four-leafed clovers down his throat. Yep, as harbingers of doom go, this one could not be more perfectly miserable. The PS Vita handheld may currently be yet to launch, but in a very real sense, it is already sunk.
Last night, after 8 days on calm seas, rowers Tom Fancett and Tom Sauer suffered a disastrous capsize of their 24 foot boat while taking part in the Talisker Atlantic Challenge, a race between the Canary Islands and Barbados. Hit by a freak wave, their craft sank, and the pair were forced to spend the night on the boat’s liferaft while waiting for the nearest ship to reach them for a rescue. The nearest ship was 120 miles away. They were 480 miles away from their desination. This was a cold night in December. Basically, the whole experience must have been about as much fun as herpes.
What do any of this have to do with games? Fancett and Sauer’s boat appeared to have been a Sony-sponsored vessel. It was named PS Vita. Oh. F*cking. Dear.
If we’re to assume that this mishap is a symbolic gesture on behalf of the universe, we can now expect Sony’s handheld to launch successfully, coast along uneventfully for a week, and then sink without a trace. No word yet on the fate of whichever Sony marketing man decided to have the boat named after the company's upcoming successor to the DS-trounced PSP, but we can only assume that he has been jettisoned into space and safely detonated via a controlled explosion, before having his house burned to the ground and the earth salted, as his old office was doused with holy water.
