Gearheads of War

I don't read 1Up unless an article is linked from another site simply because, for my tastes, the design of their homepage is a dog's breakfast.  I am a neat and tidy person and I just can't get past the mix of community member pages and 1Up staff stuff. (Also, I don't buy the print magazine because it costs a fortune to have it sent out here).  I mention this because I don't know if the editors at 1Up are addressing the issues I discuss below, or not.  

I remember clearly when Penny Arcade highlighted Mr. Hsu and his work in the comic pasted below.  I was hoping that that somebody was going to start holding people in the industry accountable for what they say and do, though I wasn't as optimistic as even the somewhat cynical comic portrays.  

Gaming news sites are providing a number of very helpful services. However, recently, I have felt that the journalists need to call people on their BS more readily.

Let me provide two simple, very specific instances where I feel the press completely failed at their professional tasks.  First, the coverage of the announcements (the launch dates) of the Xbox 360 and the PS3 at that time and now.  When Microsoft came out and stated their launch date, Sony immediately stated they would launch about 6 months later.  For Sony that was a complete impossibility, no developers had dev kits or even specs and yet they were going to be launching the system in what was it, 9 months?  I remember the instance clearly because I scoured the web for any sign of anyone calling "foul" on that.  Indeed, none of the sites that I checked even bothered to say "Sony says  they will launch the system on such-and such a date".  Everywhere I checked it said "PS3 Launch blah blah blah" as if that were the date it would actually launch.  Peter Moore was the first to mention that the plastic housing for the PS3 didn't even have air vent holes.  At the time, as far as I was concerneed, he was the only one that was very cautiously suggesting to everyone that Sony had a big job ahead of them. In my opinion, if there is any "New journalism" to happen, the journalists need to start calling BS, or at least reporting the BS as a claim that someone is making not as actual fact.

The second example I want to highlight just happened at this E3 in a similar fashion.  Sony announced a "price cut" and none of the sites I visited discussed it as anything other than what Sony described it as being - a price cut.  It wasn't until Peter Moore made the comment that it was more like a "feature increase" instead of a "price cut" that news sites started even considering the language that Sony chose to describe their firesale.

See, in my mind, that reporting isn't the job of the spin masters.  It is the job of the games journalists. When it comes to vaporware, news sites do a pretty good job of reminding everyone how long Duke Nukem as been in development.  When it comes to comparing who said what, and what actually happened, very little is written.  It would make hugely entertaining features too, because there is so much BS in this industry.  

http://www.penny-arcade.com/2006/01/20