In Perspective: 29/10/10

This is a personal blog and does not reflect the opinions of TheSixthAxis or its editorial team.

It’s been a funny old week. When you look back on it, it’s been relatively quiet for actual game news, but rather heated when you look at the industry as a whole: from websites writing reviews based on ‘imaginary’ review code to secret codenames for next generation consoles, it’s been the sort of week where discussion has been hot without actually having any new games to really talk about.  We did go and play Need for Speed with EA though, and get thrown around in a Porsche, but that’s all for next week…

But first, that GT5 review. Gran Turismo 5 is Sony’s big title just now, and it’s one that the guys at Polyphony have been working on for years.  Yes, I’ve played it, but have I played the full game?  No, because there aren’t any review copies out yet – a spokesperson at SCEE confirmed that to us: “there is no review code for Gran Turismo 5.”  So how have 3XG reviewed the game?  I’m going to stick my neck out on the line here and say they haven’t.  Yes, there’s a well researched article there, but is it based on actual game time?  No, I don’t think so.

Of course, I could be wrong, in fact all the site needs to do is show me a photograph of the game and I’ll hold my hands up.  This isn’t me begrudging another site the chance for their 15 minutes, that’s fine, but when what amounts to a (substantial) preview is dressed up as a review it’s disingenuous.  “Gran Turismo 5 is the definitive game that show’s [sic] off every feature that the PS3 has to offer,” says the concluding line, ad verbatim.   “From the large size of the game, 3D graphics and super accurate physics to a strong community and unparalleled dedication from Sony — if you are [sic] racing fan this is a must buy, if not then you should certainly buy it for someone who is.”

I’m not going to spend all day picking apart the review, but there’s enough in those last few words to make me want to hurl my Dual Shock at the screen.  How can the author assert any confidence to the ‘strong community’ when nobody’s playing it?   Or indeed the ‘size’ of the game when all anyone has played so far is the Arcade mode and a wee dabble on the Time Trial.  Again, I’m willing to put my hands up and retract all this the second I see physical evidence of the disk, but I’m hardly alone in my suspicions going off the comments on the article in question.

And then there’s the PlayStation Phone. Peter covered this far more eloquently than I could ever hope to, but yesterday he and the editor of NowGamer exchanged a few public comments on Twitter regarding the ‘backtracking’ of their claims that they’d been told PSP Phone is “fake”.  It might very well be, and it’s almost certainly not going to be called the PSP Phone, but did a spokesperson for Sony really say “it’s fake”?  Possibly.  Did he or she expect to be quoted on record?  Almost certainly not.

From what I could gather from the sidelines yesterday I personally (and I could be wrong) get the impression the site was asked to retract the statement by whoever said it, and replace it with the stock response we received when we asked our PR contact about the ‘phone.  I really don’t want to dig any deeper than Peter has already dug, but it’s my opinion that the site should have stuck with the original story and perhaps edited it to reflect the updated information.  Instead, they changed the title from “Sony: PSP Phone is Fake” to “Sony Comments On ‘Fake’ PSPhone” which is not only entirely different in phrasing but also in meaning and context.

I noticed this piece from UK blogger and site writer Jonathan Cresswell yesterday, which highlights the pitfalls in changing stories without really explaining them.  “Dave Cook, the writer of the story,” says Cresswell, “has been replying to people about the change on Twitter. Despite the website changing its story, he is more than happy on Twitter to repeat the claims that Sony say the PSP Phone is fake, and says that they removed the other statement because Sony asked them to.”

So why does the article itself not reflect that?  “Why do you stand by it on your Twitter and not your publication?” continues the blog. “Here’s a hint – they’re both public. Have some balls and stand by your story.” It’s entirely possible that NowGamer were caught up in something of an unfortunate PR blunder and are reluctant to really point the finger, which in itself is fair enough, but changing the whole story to fit without an explanation (we all make mistakes, but it’s easy to add an update) is, in my humble opinion, confusing to the site’s audience.

In short: is the PSP Phone fake?  Possibly.  Did someone at Sony say that?  We’ll probably never know.  Time to move on? Sure.

To?  Well, how about the PSP2? Sales of the Go haven’t been great, and although I own one and absolutely love it, I do concede that it’s (still) too expensive and perhaps the market wasn’t quite ready to be so dictated to in regards to what games are available, their prices and how we as consumers like to choose how to obtain them.  The original PSPs are great because UMDs are dirt cheap and you can still grab the downloads just fine, but the Go’s locked into download only, which means Sony and the publishers set the pricing, not the market.  But the next PSP is now really only a matter of an official confirmation away.

So on that subject, I like VG247.  I’ve never spoken to Pat but I do admire his attitude and approach, Johnny Cullen is a frequent delight (although his language would scare anyone) and there’s always something to read when I’ve done browsing TSA as they do tend to cover pretty much everything.  Yesterday the team wrote an article about the codename for the PSP2, calling it Veta, and saying that Sony were sending out fake bits of info to developers in order to catch any leaks – in theory, if only developer X has been told that the PSP2 sports Y graphics chip and that news gets out, it’s obvious where it came from.  Clever.

But what if the variable Sony are changing around isn’t the technical spec, the layout of the buttons or the storage medium, but the name?  What if only developer X has been told the name is ‘Veta’?  I’m just thinking out loud, mind, because the article says ‘multiple sources’ have ‘confirmed’ that the name’s Veta, so that can’t be the case.  It would be pretty damning if it was, though, and surely the name’s the easiest thing to change when you’re dealing with potentially hundreds of developers…  And for what it’s worth, we’ve heard a different name…

Finally, wrapping things up, is The Fight. You might have heard that reviews were meant to land today, but we won’t be publishing ours until early next week.  The reason why is simple, after publishing our hands-on preview earlier in the week a member of the development team got in touch and spoke to us about some of the aspects in the article, in particular the head tracking and calibration which I’d had some problems with.  It wouldn’t be right to review the game without taking into account what was suggested (lighting conditions, mainly, and what to do if the head tracking fails) so I’ll take another look over the weekend.

Rest assured that the game’s great, though, and this isn’t anyone interfering with the site’s editorial, it’s just us wanting to make sure that we cover all the bases as The Fight is Sony’s first non-casual title for Move and deserves the correct amount of attention before committing that all import score to the footer of the text.  In fact, on a personal level as the chap mainly responsible for publisher contact here I relish external interaction, especially pre-release, as the two-way feedback system shows consideration and respect for both parties.  I wish more developers would do that, actually – in fact if Polyphony want to send us a build of GT5 we’ll gladly let the guys at 3XG know how that ‘strong community’ is working out for them.

A funny old week indeed.

This is a personal blog and does not reflect the opinions of TheSixthAxis or its editorial team.