Given the PS3's precipitous fall from presumed console war winner to a seemingly perpetual runner-up status in domestic and foreign sales, we could probably fill a list of 101 dumb business moments using Sony alone. While Fortune's list of 101 dumb business moments of 2007 isn't so narrowly focused, Sony still manages to show up twice for two separate PR blunders.Fortune gives the 61st position on the list to Sony's over-the-top God of War II launch party and the furor it drew from animal rights groups. Never mind that the reality of the event was much tamer than the media sensationalism -- in public relations, perception quickly becomes reality (In fact, even now Fortune repeats the Sony-denied claim that journalists were invited to "reach inside the still-warm carcass of a freshly slaughtered goat to eat offal from its stomach.")
Trailing right behind at No. 63 on the list is the Church of England's vocal objections to the use of Manchester Cathedral in Sony's Resistance: Fall of Man. Again, it doesn't really matter that Sony apologized twice or that the cathedral's use wasn't any worse than that seen in popular movies. Once the story is out there, the PR damage is hard to undo. Dumb, but true.
[Via GamesIndustry.biz]