"Production Updates" Section Gets (Game)Spotted)

I was checking out the Gamespot News section this morning and was more than a little surprised to see a "Production Updates" section below the "Top Stories" headers. A whole separate section for Gone Gold announcements and shipping dates, set apart from the other news.



Long-time readers may remember that I recommended such a system way back in September. Apparently, Gamespot has been doing these things since back in early February and I've just been oblivious. So consider this a belated "thumbs up" to Gamespot for no longer trying to mix oil and water.

Putting a spec sheet back in Pandora's Box

So here's the situation. Review these facts carefully, because there will be an quiz later.

• A picture has been posted on the forums for Chinese website GZ Easy. The picture shows what is allegedly a leaked system specification and schematic diagram for the next Xbox system. The picture bears the name of Michael Dougherty, head of Xbox Advanced Technology Group.



• There is contradictory information about whether or not the picture is real. One anonymous source says, "I'm sure Microsoft is freaking out because this is the same stuff [developers] have now." Another expert, however, says, "there's some really surprising missing detail, like the twin-core architecture and a few other really crucial things... I'd have to guess it was a fake."



• You work at a major video game news site. Microsoft's Legal Department has specifically asked you not to post pictures of the alleged schematic.



• Some of your competitors have already posted the picture on their site, and some other mainstream technology sites have posted it as well.

The big question: Do you abide by Microsoft's request? I'll give you a few line breaks to think about it.



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If you haven't guessed by now, this situation is not hypothetical. It happened recently to IGN, who did not post the picture with their story on the leak. The competitors that posted the picture included GamePro and Xbit Labs. The quotes above come from the IGN article and a GamesIndustry.biz article which also didn't post the picture.



I have to give IGN major kudos for their decision. It would have been pretty easy to ignore Microsoft's request and defend the decision by saying the picture is already available to the public elsewhere and is therefore fair game for further publication. This would also be a practical decision, seeing as IGN might be losing readership to the other sites that either didn't hear or didn't listen to Microsoft's request.



Nonetheless, given that the picture can't be confirmed as authentic and could in fact be protected proprietary information, I think the decision not to republish it is the right one. Just because a document is available elsewhere doesn't mean you have to help publicize it, especially when you're not sure if it's reliable or not. There's nothing you can do to prevent readers from going to less scrupulous sites to view the material, but at least you're not adding to the problem. I applaud IGN for taking the high road on this one.



Anyone think IGN actually made the wrong decision? Feel free to defend your position using the comments link below.

Why can't Kojima insult journalism in this country?

Thanks to Jeff Bridges (no relation, he assures me) for sending a link to an excerpt from Hideo Kojima's comments on the state of video game journalism. "It is shit," the Metal Gear creator succinctly explains in this months Edge and VideoGiochi magazines. "I am certain that most game reporters in Japan are not really journalists, they are useless idiots."



As for the rest of the world, the excerpt is cryptic. "It's easy for us to compare the quality of reporters from Japan and other parts of the world when we visit E3 or ECTS, and this fact makes me hard." Does this mean other parts of the world are better? Worse? Exciting?



Anyone want to defend the industry against Kojima's obviously baseless accusations?

News of The Ombudsman and the ombudsman

For those who don't think that headline doesn't make sense, this blog is The Ombudsman and I am the ombudsman.



If you didn't notice, I gave the blog a spiffy new template just now. It doesn't seem to cascade across the archives, but at least the italics and right-side links will be readable from now on. (Never mind. I figured it out.)



Also, regular readers of GameCritics.com may have noticed that I now hold the title of News Editor on that fine site. Many of you will no doubt see this as hypocritical given my past tirades on the subject of "link-and-quote" journalism. I ask that you consider the following:

1. That GameCritics.com is mainly a reviews site and doesn't have the resources for original reporting.



2. That I provide analysis of the news items and not simply a copy-and-paste recitation of the headline and important quotes.



3. That providing links to important news gives the site readership a common basis of understanding for the state of the industry, which in turn engenders community building.



4. That I am, in fact, a giant hypocrite.

I'm heading into a bit of a crunch time in my life right now. Besides E3 coming up, I'm trying to prepare for finals (and finish my end-of-year projects), prepare for graduation, find a job, find an apartment and plan a European vacation. I'll try to keep up with regular Ombudsman content, but don't be surprised if the daily updates stop without warning for a while.

A Timely Style Note

E3 stands for "Electronic Entertainment Exposition." Therefore, it should be written as "E3" and not "E3 Expo" or worse, "E3 Exposition."



If you want to write it as E³ (with the superscripted 3) every time, be my guest, but it is hardly necessary.



Thank you.

The system works...

...in a roundabout sort of way. Most of you will remember a recent post about a 1up story that seemed incredibly vague about the identity of former Take-Two CEO Jeffrey Lapin. Well, today I got an e-mail from the article's author, 1up news editor David Smith:



Thanks for the catch. What happened there is that when highlighting the text to paste it into the publishing form, I missed the first paragraph. The story now makes more sense, although it is no less boring and still of minimal interest to the common gamer ^_^



So there you have it. Simple human-computer interaction error is to blame for the faulty reference. Remember, you too can make a small difference in this world by whining about small errors on a blog =).

The Ombudsman Goes Curmudgeoning

You readers might be interested in a recent piece I did for Curmudgeon Gamer, a video game blog that's almost as cranky as this one. The article focuses on how ineffective online-enabled sales stats are for measuring how many people actually play console games online. I decided not put this on the Ombudsman because most of the sites I saw covering the story were quick to add caveats to this effect. Still, an interesting little statistical game to play.