Friday, August 21, 2009

Hatred is Never Helpful

I logged into Twitter this afternoon and found a link to this article: Why Do the Press Hate the Sony Playstation 3? It's from an Australian site (so don't get confused by the prices they quote) and may be the most overdue piece in gaming journalism today.

"As you can see, the arrival of the PS3 Slim has done nothing to quell the fires of hatred from the gaming press. For reasons I can’t begin to fathom, fair and balanced journalism seems to have gone out the window when it comes to Sony, with many commentators treating the Nippon conglomerate with as much distaste as a sniffling swine flu victim. Just what has Sony done to tick you all off, exactly?"

It truly is baffling. As far as I've ever been able to tell, the only mistake Sony actually made was releasing the PS3 later than the 360. That's it. They also gave gamers plenty that we want and need with this generation, like wireless networking included and wireless controllers that can actually survive a pretty long night of marathoning, and of course, the all-important lack of online fees. The only things I've ever needed to buy were an extra controller and a long HDMI cable to reach our TV. Our PS3 was a present, but even if I'd paid for it the grand total expenditure, minus games, was about $500. That's BEFORE the new price cut, obviously. I may buy two more controllers at some point, but as we mostly play single-player games on it, they're only needed for LittleBigPlanet parties around here.

One of my closest friends ended up spending about $2,000 on 360s and necessary accessories. I say 360s because he has owned 3. All got the infamous RROD, one took about a year to die but the subsequent two died in about a week. I would LOVE to get a 360 for about 2 or 3 games, but that is just too rich for my blood. I have no hatred of Microsoft or their consoles, I just can't afford to own a 360 as things stand. Gosh, I wish it was different.

Still, I find it baffling that anyone who would call themselves a journalist wouldn't jump on that story. Why is it that everyone is so quick to call out any tiny "evil" thing Microsoft does in the computer arena but no one in the gaming press ever calls them out on making a console that can die so quickly and easily? Why does everyone scream, "Monopoly!" when it comes to Windows but at the same time seem to want Microsoft to have a monopoly in the gaming world? (On a side note, why do so many people seem to want an Apple monopoly? Just as baffling.)

Console competition is healthy, it makes engineers and developers search for new inspiration and directions to move in. If one company truly won the war we would never have all these wonderful features and choices because there would be no impetus to design them. Heck, we would likely be content to just play our PS2s forever if it weren't for all these smart people needing to find ways to differentiate their next product.

Not only does modern news need a new Walter Cronkite but the gaming world sure could use some of his ethics.

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