Check out this link my girlfriend sent me:

http://www.salon.com/tech/letters/2001/11/26/xboxlet/index.html

Nice work, Ben. Man, I wish I could get published by Salon...

-Tom

"Check out this link my girlfriend sent me:"

I just wish I could get a girlfriend.

And yet Microsoft didn't even see fit to give Ben one of the free XBoxes!

(Or me, sniff...)

What's up with that anyway? Microsoft was handing out Xboxes like candy. I've seen sites and people that got free systems that aren't even remotely related to the console industry.

Is Microsoft trying to buy the PC gaming press? No other console company was throwing around free consoles to PC gaming entities before this that I'm aware of.

--Dave

Elliot-- "I haven't been laid in two weeks!"
Dennis -- "I haven't been laid in two months!"
Kevin -- "My life is bad."

God, I loved that scene from a recent Just Shoot Me.

Anyway, congratulations Ben. When Salon inevitably goes out of business, feel free to point and laugh. At Wagner James Au anyway.

I just happened to look at Salon today for the first time in months. When I saw Ben's letter I nearly got up and cheered. But then I thought that I had read something similar on qt3 a week or two ago, so I figured someone had already posted that letter in one of the Xbox threads. Did you paraphrase something you had said here Ben, or am I hallucinating (always possible with me)?

Yeah, how is Salon going to stay afloat peddling artsy-fartsy porn?

I like how the second letter starts out by calling the article an "uninformed diatribe" before the author continues with his own uninformed diatribe. You couldn't get out of your car and shoot things or hire a hooker in Crazy Taxi, but you can in GTA3. Metal Gear Solid was never about innovative gameplay, it featured the same basic gameplay as the earlier Metal Gear games, it was all about crating brilliantly realized environments and telling an exciting story. MGS2 certainly makes a huge leap in the first category (haven't played through the game myself yet, so I don't know how great the plot is). And he completely ignores games like ICO and Devil May Cry which do exactly what he complains the PS2 doesn't. He than levels accusations about Sony's monopolistic behavior without providing any evidence. MS strongarming is pretty damn well documented. If he's referring to things like Sony reps asking stores not to push competitors' products, well duh. That's kinda what these guys do, not just for Sony, but for everyone. And then he talks about how Sony "engineered a PS2 shortage on launch" as though this were fact. The shortage was very real. From what I understand these accusations never progressed farther than the hysterical anti-Sony fanboy propaganda stage. And why is he still talking about Nintendo and cartriges? Christ, welcome to 2001, it's a brave new millenium.

As for Sones' letter, yeah looks pretty damn familiar! My only issue with his perspective is while the Xbox launch games stack up fairly well to the PS2 launch games, the fact is the Xbox isn't competing with the PS2 a year ago. It's competing with the PS2 of today.

Just read the third letter, wait a minute! Where the hell did the rumors about an Xbox port of ICO come from? I was under the impression that it was a Sony developed, or at the very least Sony published game. I think that being the case we can be fairly certain it won't hit the Xbox.

Brad Grenz
Man, I've got to stay away from those letters pages. I'm like an addict... They make me all frothy.

I noticed that too, Rob (and Brad). I'd say Ben either cut and pasted large amount of his Qt3 post in his letter to the editor, or else he copied and pasted large amounts of his letter to the editor into his Qt3 post. I'll let him tell us which.

Either that, or he has an amazing penchant for using the exact same words in two separate instances, but I doubt that's it...

I don't get the intigue with whether Ben wrote an original letter to Salon, an original post to Q23, both, or neither.

Since they're his words, he should be able to use 'em how he sees fit, and as often as he sees fit. Where you saw it first seems pretty meaningless. Am I just missing something in this discussion?

ah, intigue=intrigue

I don't get the intrigue either, for the same reasons. I think these boards would make a good sounding board to try out ideas before firing them off as a letter to the editor.

Yo, pimplepusses!

Here's a new article on the same subject from WiredNews:

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,48567,00.html

This otta keep you dorks busy while I pork your mothers pimp daddy style.

Oh, I have no problem with it! I don't think anyone else does, either. I think it's great.

Simple musings, that's all. The words just rang with familiarity.

I agree. I think this board is a great sound-off point for things like this. I am curious which came first, but it's merely curiosity. No animosity intended.

Apologies to anyone necessary.

They rang with familiarity because he said them in the thread I started about the Xbox launch.

No big deal.

--Dave

Ay yi yi...the conclusion of that article Fong linked to is fine, but there are a bunch of inaccuracies and the writer hasn't even played Halo. It's like he looked at the exterior of the systems and said "I don't care about games. Why am I writing this article about game systems? I'll just spew some words out on a page and get paid my fee..."

Mainstream press reporting on gaming is nice because it raises awareness of it. But when all it does is reinforce the same old stereotypes of gamers and offer up poor information or worse, erroneous information, I think we'd be better off having the whole industry go back to being ignored.

--Dave

"And yet Microsoft didn't even see fit to give Ben one of the free XBoxes!"

Nope, I had to buy mine. Of course, we did get a free one here at the office.

"Did you paraphrase something you had said here Ben, or am I hallucinating (always possible with me)?"

Actually, it was the reverse. I wrote the letter to Salon, and then paraphrased it here.

"My only issue with his perspective is while the Xbox launch games stack up fairly well to the PS2 launch games, the fact is the Xbox isn't competing with the PS2 a year ago. It's competing with the PS2 of today."

That's true, and a good argument. One that Au should have made, probably. Still, every new console has to compete against established systems. It just comes with the territory. I predicted that PS2 would fail for the same reasons, and man, was I wrong. So I don't know that I'd make that argument a second time.

"Where the hell did the rumors about an Xbox port of ICO come from? I was under the impression that it was a Sony developed, or at the very least Sony published game. I think that being the case we can be fairly certain it won't hit the Xbox."

I dunno--I hope it's true, though. I hear that it's a really, really great game.

Hey guys I didn't mean to come off all testy or anything.

Ok, big group hug now, come on, come on... get yer behinds over here.

Okay, break! ;)

"Mainstream press reporting on gaming is nice because it raises awareness of it. But when all it does is reinforce the same old stereotypes of gamers and offer up poor information or worse, erroneous information, I think we'd be better off having the whole industry go back to being ignored."

This board _completely_ destoys any stereo-types about gamers.

It would really be nice if newspapers would stop Editorializing their gaming articles to the point where they're "exclusives". If they want to print pieces on gaming, pay the people who play the games and review them for a living to write a piece.

But then, that's the story of newspapers, editorialize everything, make it exclusive, and make it for the average-Joe with the collective IQ of a wagon.

Newspapers and mainstream media--of any form--are certainly not what they once were.

"This board _completely_ destoys any stereo-types about gamers."

It goes one further than that: it creates all new ones.

=)

"But then, that's the story of newspapers, editorialize everything, make it exclusive, and make it for the average-Joe with the collective IQ of a wagon."

I thought that was the story of game pubs. Ooo, ouch. Burned myself on that one.

Yeah. Gamers=Group huggers.

I think that my participation on various boards shows that as a gamer and Internet denizen, I'm not some pasty-white geek that never leaves the house. Instead, I am an anal-retentive, pedantic pasty-white geek that never leaves the house.

Man, that could be a bumper sticker! (For a really long bumper...)

If you ever get one printed, I want one!