You would think this an article about Jeff Gerstmann, but it’s not. Despite the hailstorm of controversy (firestorm has been a bit overused of late, after all) surrounding the debacle over at GameSpot, there are other happenings that the Watch would be remiss to overlook.

Last week the New York Times published a piece called “Some Essential Hardware (Even Away from the Street)”, an article aimed at executives who needed both functional gadgets and tech that could provide some relaxation. Slotted into relaxation considerations were the Wii, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, and while the Wii got its due factually speaking, there were tremendous blunders concerning the PS3 and 360 information – including price, processor type, and “best-sellers” that, ya know, haven’t been released yet.

Fortunately, the New York Times has since publicly admitted error and posted a correction. We think their addendum to the article best sums up its flaws:

An article in Business Day on Friday about favorite gadgets of executives referred incorrectly to the video game Gran Turismo 5. It has not yet been released, and thus is not a best-selling game. The article also referred imprecisely to the game Halo 3. It is the first game in the Halo series designed for the Xbox 360; the earlier games, though playable on the Xbox 360, were designed for the original Xbox. The chip in the Xbox 360 also was misidentified. It has a Xenon chip, not a Cell processor. And the article also misstated the price of the Sony PlayStation 3. The PlayStation 3 starts at $399, not $299.

Sure, perhaps the Halo mistake is forgivable, and maybe we can understand slipping up on “what’s under the hood” of the PS3 and 360. But also quoting the PS3 price as $299 and, more so, calling an unreleased game a “best-seller”? Perhaps the Gran Turismo 5 slip up wasn’t a slip up at all, and the Times forgot to mention the consultation of the office Magic 8 Ball for sales forecasting.

All jabs aside, errors do happen, and the important thing is that the Times did exactly what any reputable publication would do by posting a public admission of error. However, this piece is too sloppy for most any news outlet, let alone the New York Times. It wasn’t merely the fault of the writer, but also the copy editor(s) and anyone else associated pre-publication. Hopefully now they’ve got their article submission process ironed out again.

The last few weeks have been rather busy, but I wanted to quickly touch on a familiar topic in game journalism ethics. The issue of publisher gifts has been at the center of many a controversy in the game media. In an effort to cozy up to publications, publishers often send “schwag bags” in the spirit of their latest game release. While the vast majority of these gifts are trivial promotional trinkets, every now and then lavish presents are sent to editors. We often see examples of what not to do when journalists receive these pricey gifts. I’d like to highlight two examples that buck that trend.

In September, Microsoft sent out several personalized Halo 3 duffel bags to members of the game media. The bags contained two Halo 3-themed 360 controllers, Halo 3-edition Elite 360, Master Chief collectible helmet, Xbox Live headset, dog tags, health kit, and some military meals. The total value of the gifts estimated to approx. 800 USD. In a widely reported instance, Dean Takahashi of San Jose Mercury News displayed the contents of the bag in his video blog. Takahashi provided a great example of journalistic principle by announcing that he would return the gifts to Microsoft. In response to reader comments on the video, Takahashi stated:

There was probably $900 worth of stuff in that goody box. That’s some serious swag. It’s so valuable in fact that, if we accept it, people would question our ethics and priorities. So it’s going back to Microsoft tomorrow. We need to get games from the companies we cover and sometimes the hardware to run them as well. We keep a small number of games for reference and donate most of the rest. We’re not trying to put on airs, as much as we joke around about it. When it’s too much, we’ll send it back. There are no hard feelings about that, but it’s the way we operate.

Kudos to Takahashi for displaying solid game journalism ethics on this issue. It’s easy to get caught up in the hype and media frenzy of blockbuster releases, but standing firm on principle is a great message to send to aspiring game journalists in the industry.

After reading Dean’s story, I asked Dan Hsu of Electronic Gaming Monthly what his team did with their Halo 3 duffel bag. I was surprised to hear that they had kept it. However, he gave a reasonable explanation for their decision. Below, Hsu explains his policy on publisher gifts such as the Halo 3 duffel bag:
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In 1995, Francesca Reyes was just another English major at San Francisco State University. In her free time, she worked at a coffee shop, played as many video games as she could get her hands on and read up on her hobby in magazines like GameFan and Game Players (her favorites at the time). One day, a friend told Reyes about a position at Sony’s consumer services desk. She got the job, which eventually led her to editorial positions at Ultra Game Players, Next Generation, PSM, Official Dreamcast Magazine and, most recently, her recently-announced position as editor-in-chief of the U.S. Official Xbox Magazine (OXM).

Over ten years later, Reyes admits she “kind of got sidetracked” from her plans to be an English professor.

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A quick bite from a Gamespot story on the Xbox 360’s “rocky start at retail”

By noon Tuesday, GameSpot staffers who had not preordered Xbox 360s witnessed sellouts of the console at dozens of locations, including Fry’s Electronics, Costco, Circuit City, and Game Crazy.

Two (largely rhetorical) questions:

1) Why is it relevant at all that the Gamespot staffers didn’t have preorders? Were they there to buy a system or to report on the sellouts (or both)?

2) Why don’t these staffers have pre-orders. They work at Gamespot. Shouldn’t they have seen this situation coming? Especially given stories like this one?

I woke up this morning to the strains of “The Teddy Bear’s Picnic” on local alternative rock station DC101 and I immediately knew something was up. Sure enough, the station’s Elliot in the Morning team couldn’t stop talking about the Xbox 360 all morning, fielding calls from excited listeners and basically waxing unpoetic about how amazing everything associated with the system is.

But that’s not all! The crew added a twist to their coverage by having two employees drive around area Best Buys in a van and throw water balloons at gamers and parents waiting in line for the system, all the while blasting “The Teddy Bear’s Picnic” through the speakers. (You’ll undersand if you’ve seen this commercial) . The van approached the expectant shoppers promising free donuts, then let loose with an aquatic barrage when they approached. The waiting parents weren’t too happy with this turn of events, obviously — one tried to throw her coffee at the offending DJ, which led to a lot of inappropriate indignation and name calling from the balloon-thrower. In-studio host Elliot couldn’t stop laughing like a hyena the whole time, while co-host Diane seemed extremely mortified and kept largely silent.

This allowed Elliot to have the line of the morning, when he speculated that Bill Gates is “sitting at home rubbing his crotch” today. With a whole morning of free advertising by the likes of DC101, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was.

I can’t possibly keep up with all the Xbox 360 coverage going on right now, which is why I’ve largely been ignoring it on the blog. I feel like as soon as I post something, some new development will make whatever I write irrelevant, incomplete or inaccurate. That said, here’s some thoughts and links.

• Remember when I mentioned that Perfect Dark Zero was notably absent from the first batch of reviews for the Xbox 360? It turns out the game was running a little late, even skipping certification before being sent to the CD presses. This has led to some relatively late reviews, some of which seem like they were rushed out to get in before launch. Curmudgeon Gamer has more snarky commentary.
• All week, mainstream outlets have been weighing in on whether Jon Q. Public should wait in line to get the Xbox 360 at launch. The general consensus for the masses seems to favor waiting it out. A small sampling — USA Today: “Will 360’s advances represent a whole new game or just a hop up to the next level? … The answer is yet to come.” CNN/Money: “But is there a reason for the rest of the world [of non-hardcore gamers] to rush stores? The short answer: Not on Day One.” Wired: “It’s the most impressive use I’ve found so far for my flat-screen TV — even though it isn’t exactly what I imagined the next generation of video-game systems would bring to my living room.” Rocky Mountain News: “The 360 promises to deliver the future of gaming. And it likely will - one day.” L.A. Times: “For those less serious, a better plan of action might be to save your money for the release of next year’s PlayStation 3, a system that boasts to be the generation after this one.” New York Post: “Don’t believe the hype - and don’t buy the Xbox 360.”
• One lapsed gamer/USA Today columnist went against this tide of caution in the mainstream, saying
  “Xbox 360 has set the video game benchmark — yes, even besting Pong and Pac-Man.” High praise indeed.
• Of course, plenty of other mainstream stories have focused on just how difficult it will be to get a system at launch. Journalists seem somewhat stymied that retailers won’t tell them exactly how many systems will be available on day one. Microsoft will only say that they plans to ship 3 million systems worldwide in the first 90 days. The New York Times accurately gauges the average shopper’s chances of getting a system at launch: Good Luck
• Another major mainstream theme seems to be the Xbox 360’s multimedia capabilities, which general interest papers seem to care about a lot more than dedicated gaming publications (surprise surprise). PC Magazine has a rather technical review, while the San Jose Mercury News notes “The only thing the Xbox 360 didn’t do was automatically turn horizontal photos.” Does it make coffee too?
• Finally, Dean Takahashi seems determined to talk to all 3,5000 people at Microsoft’s Zero Hour launch event in the Mojave desert, and post about it live on his blog.

Well, the embargo has finally been lifted and actual reviews of the Xbox 360’s launch titles are beginning to filter through.

It’s interesting to see what games each site chose to feature in their opening salvo. Gamespot IGN, GameSpy and 1up all featured reviews of Kameo, and all came to different conclusions (scores 8.7/10, 8.4/10, 4/5 and 7/10). IGN, GamePro and 1up decided to use some of their precious pre-embargo review time on ports of Madden 2006 and Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland and NBA2K6, respectively (IGN also reviewed NBA2K6). Sure, these games offer nice, direct technical comparisons with the current generation of systems, but are potential 360 buyers really interested in games they can already buy for other systems today? Maybe they are… what do I know?

According to GameRankings.com, the lowest Xbox360 score so far is 7 out of 10. It’ll be interesting to see if this lower bound skews downward once the system is released and outlets that didn’t get demo consoles make their opinions known. Only one perfect score so far… 1up absolutely adores Project Gotham Racing 3.

Oddly, no major reviews yet for Perfect Dark Zero, which Microsoft seemed to be positioning as the leading system seller in its marketing. Is the game not ready for review? Not as good as promised? Being saved for closer to launch day? Developing.

Seems that at least one site may have gotten around Microsoft’s strict Nov. 15 embargo on any and all Xbox 360 impressions and reviews for outlets that got early demo units. Apparently,this blogger has a friend who got his hands on the system through a retail job, but he can’t post pictures because it would “incriminate myself as well as my friend.” O…… K. Still, you should take his word for it that “this system will be everything you want it to be and more.” Hey, if you can’t trust an anonymous, possibly fabricated blog posting, what can you trust?

But it’s not just no-name bloggers breaking the cone of deafening silence. French site Gamekult, which posted this hillarious video of an Xbox 360 being unwrapped. Even the federal government is getting into the act, leaking this Xbox 360 manual through the FCC’s official site.

What really gets me is that these outlets can post things like the launch lineup or the backwards compatibility list but Microsoft wants them to wait until 12:01 before posting things like videos, previews and reviews — y’know, the stuff readers are clamoring for. We wouldn’t want anyone to feel bad that their impressions were posted a few seconds after someone else’s, now would we?

The fact that some (albeit lame and questionable) info. is leaking out despite this effort is just more evidence that, in the age of the Internet, no company can expect total control over their media message, and no outlet can expect that everyone will follow every embargo.

(Thanksto VGMWatch reader Joshua Bornstein for initially sending me this story)

1up’s recent article comparing the Xbox 360 and the Dreamcast has been getting a lot of attention in the blogosphere. The similarities have been called “eerie” and “scary” by some rather high profile blogs, but I think “circumstantial” and “irrelevant” is more fitting for most of them. Sure, both systems launched a year before the competition and failed to have the latest data storage technology. Those are important similarities. But similar logos? The color of the console case? Promotion by “crazy, rich, bald guys?” I know the launch is scheduled for Thanksgiving time, but that’s still a lot of stuffing.

Thank goodness 1up had the sense to include a balancing list of ten important ways the Xbox 360 and Dreamcast are different. This list is much tighter and more convincing, which makes me wonder why the article isn’t titled “Ten reasons the Xbox is not the Next Dreamcast” Guess it’s easier to feature provacative coincidences than accurate analysis, eh?

…goes to Ellie Gibson at Eurogamer for actually contacting the BBC reporter who set off a minor Internet frenzy by saying in this report that the PS3 would launch 22 months after the Xbox 360. According to EuroGamer, the reporter said the number was “just speculation,” which begs the question… what in the world is a BBC reporter doing speculating that the PS3 will launch over a year after the generally expected Spring 2006 launch.