JRock3x8's Life Musings

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Short Entry - Gaming Media and Microsoft

I am a relative newcomer to the world of video game news. I only started tracking this stuff casually starting December 2003, and turned hardcore this past Spring when details about the 360 started leaking out. I have an observation that is so stupidly simple that it borders on "The Sky is Blue".

Gaming media companies don't like Microsoft.

It is a well known assumption in the video game community that Gamespot whacks all their XBox reviews by 0.5 or so. Why else would Grand Theft Auto : San Andreas get a lower rating on XBox than PS2? It's the same game!

Kevin Perreira of G4TV ranted on and on about Microsoft during Attack of the Show a few weeks back. Some of his comments were legitimate regarding the quality of launch titles for the 360, but I'm gathering from other comments around the community that this is one of the best launch lineups ever for a console. Whether you like the games or not.

Video Game podcasts such as VGN Radio, OLR to go and Dreamstation invariably talk about Sony and Nintendo first before they'll "waste" some time talking XBox. I understand that the worldwide penetration of the Playstation is much higher, but Sony seems to get a pass whenever the subject of their inferior system specs comes up because they have more titles available.

I don't have any major insights into this phenomena, but I hope it changes, because I think Microsoft has done enough with the XBox to earn the gaming community's respect. Time will tell whether that actually comes to pass.

Monday, October 24, 2005

Short Entry - Wal Mart 360's

Reports have been flying around the internet this past week that XBox360 demonstration kits have surfaced at Wal-Mart. However, instead of a chorus of "hooray"s and "wow"s, we're hearing about a disturbing number of failures. I said this in May, and I'll say it again. Brand new custom designed technology that gets maufactured in that short a period of time always has bugs. Always. That's why unless I won a console or unless I made enough selling one (separate blog entry - sometime) I wasn't and won't buy one of these with my own money. It's just too risky. And the early reports from Wal-Mart are just proving my point.

I just hope they have enough time to go back and make adjustments to the hardware if that's even possible. I predict it's going to be a bumpy ride this holiday season.

On a personal note, the blog entries have dried to a trickle as I am actively seeking a new career path in a new location. Regular entries should resume as I spend less time writing resumes, attending interviews, etc. Thanks for the continued reading.