The want the PS3 to build a CELL super computer called ELevatedVirtualIntellegenceSystem (ELVIS). When completed, they will ask the super computer the ultimate question, "Why do at Microsoft we screw everything up so much?"

The computer will just burn out trying to puzzle that question out. They will late figure out teh computer didn't even try to answer the question. The machine just became self aware, understood it worked for Microsoft, and killed itself out of shame.

I feel like those places usually do a better job spinning their offers as "we want you to upgrade," instead of "we need to get our competitors products out of your home."

It is fine if a third party (Gamestop) wants to do a deal like this. It seems very weird if the vendor themselves does this. Lets imagine the crapstorm that would happen if there was a "Bring your Samsung tablet into the Apple Store and get $100 off a new iPad 3".

It is great Microsoft wants to go toe to toe against Sony because this is what competition is about. Go ahead and offer discounts on your products. It gets weird if they offer discounts for disposing the competition's product because the amount of product in the market is actually being destroyed instead of generated.

I do not think they need to do that since it is still sold out everywhere. The demand for a one is not as high as for a PS4 therefore they need to promote the one a bit more.

I'm going to try this again, and underline the part that you seem to have ignored.

"We care and complain about these things--I assume we're talking about Microsoft's original DRM plan--because they would affect us personally.

Or in this case, because it would have affected us personally. Recently, my favorite cereal dropped the price of their product by a little, and decreased the amount per box by a lot. This made their cereal considerably more expensive overall, a fact that they likely tried to hide behind the price drop. I didn't like this, so I started to buy their competitor's product. Over the years to come, that's probably 1000s of boxes of cereal that they lost out on from me alone.

In the end, Microsoft vs Sony isn't much different than Kellogg's vs General Mills. They're both selling a product, and they both have to compete with price, value, and not pissing me off as a customer.

We don't have to imagine the crapstorm, this kind of promotion is commonplace. Although Samsung tablets lose nearly 90% of their value within 6 months while iPad's retain 90%, so this specific scenario is less likely.

Super sleazy stuff from MS. They just are completely deficient when it comes to PR. And right now there are plenty of reasons to keep last gen systems....like goodgames to play.

I would Totally trade in my 360 instead, hell i've got two of em!

But I still want my PS3 for some unfinished backlog and things like Persona 5.

That's where I'm at too. Don't get me wrong, I love(d?) my 360. Gears of War, Halo 3, Forza, Crackdown, and a bunch of others, were all big parts of my life over the years. But having not picked up a PS3 until late 2011, it still feels relatively new to me. Doesn't hurt that there still seems to be regular releases and the fantastically supported PS Plus deals. 360 barely gets turned on these days. In fact, it's pretty much exclusively my Hulu box. And that's only because I can't be arsed to punch in my information on the PS3 app.

Not sure if this has been mentioned yet, but they did a similar promotion for the Surface. You could trade in an iPad(i think 2nd gen and up) and get money off a Surface.

Well, to be fair this is a common promotion amoung hardware makers, bring in the competitors old stuff to upgrade to our new stuff. I think Sony does this for cameras, but I don't think they care about what brand you trade in. Of course, these days you can trade-in/recycle most working electronics for some cash or credit in many places. Amazon.com will give you $70 to $90 for your PS3.

The better deal would be to sell you PS3 to Amazon.com and buy a PS4 that costs even less...you just saved $170 - $190 on your next generation purchase by going Sony on both sides!