Sack Boy an Offensive Zionist

[Hero]

Did you see the translation? (copied from elsewhere)

1- In the 18th second: "كل نفس ذائقة الموت" ("kollo nafsin tha'iqatol mawt", literally: 'Every soul shall have the taste of death').

2- Almost immediately after, in the 27th second: "كل من عليها فان" ("kollo man alaiha fan", literally: 'All that is on earth will perish').

Yeah, those aren't exactly happy verses. If a game contained some of the more less-friendly Bible verses I'm sure there'd be pissed off people all around. People attacking and defending it and whatnot. I can see why they wouldn't want holy book phrases remixed into a game song perhaps, but particularly given the meaning... yeah that's got some potential to be sensitive material.

I kinda agree - on one hand, it is being overly wary and silly. On the other, when seeing the literal translation, lyrics like that make no sense anyway in a game that makes you feel about as bright and cheery as you can get. Our local place broke street date and when I heard the song playing, it sounded fine. Now that I know what it means, I don't really get why it would be offensive or why Sony would overreact, but from a design stance it has zero reason to be there.

[Space Pirate Roberts]

It's not the specific quote that's supposed to be the problem though, it's the mere fact of words from the Koran being put to music at all.

[James]

Except that the Koran being put to music isn't a problem at all for 99% of the planet's Muslims. It's actually pretty standard fare, apparently. The problem is that one message board poster who's a member of an obscure ultra-conservative sect asked Sony politely to remove a song he found inappropriate and Sony shat all over themselves to appease him. The Church of England can go screw itself if it wants its cathedral removed from Resistance, but one random message board posting is enough to recall several hundred thousand copies of Little Big Planet. If I'd known that was all it takes to get a multinational corporation to jump through hoops I'd have pretended to be a member of any number of little-known branches of bizarre religions in order to get things done differently.

James

[bbobb]

http://www.psxextreme.com/ps3-news/3978.html

What this guy said IMO.

[GKM]

The problem is that one message board poster who's a member of an obscure ultra-conservative sect asked Sony politely to remove a song he found inappropriate and Sony shat all over themselves to appease him.

Not defending muslims here. And I do aggree it's a bit silly and got out of hand.

But I can see why Sony did this non the less. You see remember the brand Sony isn't a ps3 brand alone, they have a lot more other products out there. I read an article about this issue where apparently Sony products are well known and respected in the Arab world. All it takes is 10 extremists to blow this up and before you know it, you have a huge boycot of Sony's product, this would be my guess what Sony was trying to avoid, more of a business decision (to minimize the "damage").. sucks for MM, but in the end it saves Sony a much bigger damage in this case the name sony being not respected as it used to be in the arab world.

Non the less as I said before I find it silly that a religion that I have nothing to do with affect me in some way or the other. I mean this might probably won't be the last one.

Thinking back now, I would imagine if something like this happened with Xenogears, I probably wouldn't have played the game then.

[bbobb]

non the less

Non the less

Your awesome.

[GKM]

>:[

[MarsKitten]

Death to to all that would do violence over video games.

[James]

You see remember the brand Sony isn't a ps3 brand alone, they have a lot more other products out there. I read an article about this issue where apparently Sony products are well known and respected in the Arab world.

You're completely wrong here. It's not Muslims, it's a member of an tiny, obscure sect. It's like saying Christians are boycotting the funerals of American soldiers when in reality it's just Fred Phelps and his psycho-fundie family. Except in this case the Muslim sect is actually quite polite.

James

[GKM]

You're completely wrong here. It's not Muslims, it's a member of an tiny, obscure sect. It's like saying Christians are boycotting the funerals of American soldiers when in reality it's just Fred Phelps and his psycho-fundie family. Except in this case the Muslim sect is actually quite polite.

James

It wasn't the point of from who or which group it came from. My point was that it just take a small X ammount of people with whatever background to take this and totally make it a much bigger issue than it is, which will lead to a boycot or in this case tarnashing the Sony brand name. It happened to involve muslims, and last few years there has been a lot (more) tension between the western and arab world. I just think Sony went the save way. We've seen it before where something from arab world has been taken for pure entertainment got on a few people in the arab world bad side which lead to protests etc etc.

I was more trying to point out something I read in an article which made me see it from Sony's p.o.v. or atleast I can relate to why they have done it this way. Doesn't mean I agree though.