the point of crowdsourcing is to help alleviate the burden off small-time developers with big dreams and insufficient resources to make those dreams come true.
To have Sony pretend to be one of those little guys so that they can get free development resources is horrible. In the old days, a company put forth their own money to develop a product. They would sell that product and reap the benefits. They assumed the risk in the hopes of reaping the benefits.
It originally made me uneasy that with crowdsourcing, suddenly the burden of a product's success fell onto the consumer rather than the company. It was terrible to read stories like Double Fine asking for $400K to make a game, then raising $3.5 million and then saying they didn't have enough money!!!
Now, I'm okay with crowdsourcing within certain parameters. Sony pretending to be one of the little guys does not fit my criteria.
Seriously, even if you are a huge Sony fan and believe this was done merely to gauge consumer interest, then Sony should step forth and say they will not take any of the money or even provide these watches for free for the backers' input and feedback.
There are much better ways to gauge interest then taking money from people to develop your product.
I see your point for the use of the crowd for the small developer, and I can agree with a standard.
However in this case I think the wearable market is so new, Market Research would not even give you a clue as to how people would react.
Now in this case any people who did indeed toss funds into the pot will end up with a good deal in the long run. As no doubt the price per unit at funding will be so much better then to buy if and when Sony goes to mass production.
This still holds huge risk for Sony in the long run, as they could start to push a mass market unit, and then find the Crowd Fund was all of the total consumer base.
I happen to think in this case it was smart for Sony to set up an outside design group to seek public interest and quiz the market, but to then admit to the Public this is what they did.
Sony is not a Fly By Night company, so any one who funded the project will get good value for money.
I for one would not be thought of as a Sony ******, as I only own 1 Sony product. A Sony Handicam for HD video. Now if I were to review it, I would not be singing to the high heavens about it, but seeing it was an end of line "All sales final", the price was very hard to beat.
I also think you may find in future more major Electronic Firms may do the same just to gauge Market interest. Basically to see who is willing to put their money where their mouth is.
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