No, not Microsoft, MemoryStick. As in, were you aware that MemoryStick and MemoryStick Pro are (outwardly) physically identical while being incompatible? I knew about the differences between MemoryStick and MemoryStick Duo and MemoryStick Micro, and I knew that Pro offered a quicker data transfer rate, but I figured that it would degrade gracefully, like USB 2.0 devices fall back to USB 1.1. Of course, it doesn’t. So now I am stuck with a 512 MB MemoryStick Pro with no camera to go with it. :( I think my mom has decided to buy me a new Sony camera now though, so this cloud has a pretty decent consumerist silver lining. The old Sony camera is 3-4 years old anyway.
This sure is a good example of why Sony fails at formats though. Seriously: BetaMax, MiniDisc, MemoryStick, UMD — none of these have really caught on. Makes you wonder about the future of Blu-Ray, and consequently the ($600!!!) PS3. I sure won’t be buying one of those, at least not until/unless Blu-Ray establishes itself as the dominant next-gen optical media, with a price tag like that. I still love Sony’s products on the whole, but their (semi-)proprietary formats sure haven’t been profitable.