Sony™s technology flagship entertainment-shopping mall, The Metreon, located in San Francisco, is closing and will be bought by mall developer Westfield Group and Forest City Enterprises, a real estate company. The Metreon was Sony™s experiment in producing a huge 350,000 square-foot entertainment center which incorporated restaurants, stores, theaters, video arcades, and of course, a Sony Playstation store. The gigantic mega-plex was modern, futuristic, and a failure. Although the center drew approximately 6 million visitors a year, the techno-mall was doomed from the start, according to interviews given to the SF Chronicle. Bryant Taylor, former senior vice president said, "Our original vision was to create a space that was really innovative in terms of being a technology showplace and an educational experience. What got created was a shopping mall with gated attractions that you had to pay to get into. It wasn’t very fun, and the public reacted to that." The attractions Taylor is referring to are The Way Things Work exhibit and Where the Wild Things Are. Both shows were criticized as being boring. Sony had envisioned San Francisco™s elite as the primary clientele for the Metreon, but was disappointed to see the techno-mall primarily visited by teen-agers. Taylor commented, Sony envisioned a much higher-end customer than [they] ultimately wanted to be there." As the Metreon changes hands to new owners, one has to think about Sony™s business decisions regarding the opening of the complex. They were hoping for a certain demographic to buy into their vision of the Metreon, but were mistaken. In regards to the PS3, they are probably wondering if they may have misunderstood what the Sony faithful may have wanted in their next-gen console as well
