More buggy Sony software

The Register is reporting that Sony's Connect Player 1.0 software is buggy causing slow system performance. Now I'm not on a Sony QA jihad here but has Sony been releasing such poorly tested software recently? Moreover the article mentions UK owners complaining, XCP was also UK based - the recommendation and use of a tiny British company's product over a established market leaders (Macrovision/Sunncomm) seems unusual. Are Sony UK calling the shots for software or is this just another sign of the lowering QA standards of a large company?